•na 


SAN  CRISTOBAL 
DE  LA  HABANA 


THE    WORKS   OF 
JOSEPH   HERGESHEIMER 

NO PELS 

THE  LAY  ANTHONY  [1914] 
MOUNTAIN  BLOOD  [1915] 
THE  THREE  BLACK  PENNYS  [1917] 
JAVA  HEAD  [1918] 
LINDA  CONDON  [1919! 

SHORTER  STORIES 
GOLD  AND  IRON  [1918] 
THE  HAPPY  END  [1919! 

TRAVEL 

SAN  CRISTOBAL  DE  LA  HABANA 

Published  in  New  York  by 
ALFRED  A.  KNOPF 
and  for  sale  at  all  bookshops 


SAN  CRISTOBAL 
DE  LA  HABANA 

BY 

JOSEPH  HERGESHEIMER 


"Many  yeeres  since  I  had  knowledge  by 

relation  of  that  great  and  golden  Citie 

which  the  Spaniards  call  El  Dorado." 

Sir  Walter  Eakgh 


NEW  YORK 

ALFRED*  A-  KNOPF 

1920 


COPYRIGHT,  1920,  BY 
ALFRED  A.  KNOPF,  INC. 


FEINTED   IN    THE    UNITED    STATES    OT   AMERICA 


College 
Library 

F 


To 

H.  J.  B.  BAIRD 

An 

Havana 

which  he  is  free 

to  decline  in  every  particular 

save  the 

dedication 


SAN  CRISTOBAL 
DE  LA  HABANA 


THERE  are  certain  cities,  strange  to  the 
first  view,  nearer  the  heart  than  home. 
But  it  might  be  better  to  acknowledge 
that,  perhaps,  the  word  home  has  a  wider  and 
deeper  significance  than  any  mere  geographi- 
cal and  family  setting.  Many  men  are  alien 
in  houses  built  from  the  traditions  of  their 
blood;  the  most  inaccessible  and  obdurate 
parts  of  the  earth  have  always  been  restlessly 
sought  by  individuals  driven  not  so  much  by 
exterior  pressure  as  by  a  strange  necessity  to 
inhabit  a  barren  copper  mountain,  a  fever 
coast,  or  follow  to  the  end  of  life  a  river  lost 
in  a  savage  remoteness,  hiding  the  secret  of 
their  unquenchable  longing. 

Not  this,  precisely,  happened  to  me,  ap- 
proaching Havana  in  the  early  morning,  noth- 
ing so  tyrannical  and  absolute;  yet,  watching 
the  silver  greenness  of  Cuba  rising  from  the 

[9] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
blue  sea,  I  had  a  premonition  that  what  I  saw 
was  of  peculiar  importance  to  me.  1  grew  at 
once  impatient  and  sharply  intent  on  the  re- 
solving of  a  nebulous  and  verdant  mass  into 
the  details  of  dense  slopes,  slopes  that  showed, 
from  the  sea  to  their  crowns,  no  break  in  a 
dark  foliage.  The  sombreness  of  the  leaves 
immediately  marked  the  land  from  an  accus- 
tomed region  of  bright  maples  —  they  were  at 
once  dark,  glossy,  and  heavy,  an  effect  I  had 
often  tried  to  describe,  and  their  presence  in 
such  utter  expanses  filled  me  with  pleasure. 
It  was  exactly  as  though  the  smooth  lus- 
trous hills  before  me  had  been  created  out  of 
an  old  mysterious  desire  to  realize  them  in 
words. 

Undoubtedly  their  effect  belonged  to  the 
sea,  the  sky,  and  the  hour  in  which  they  were 
set.  The  plane  of  the  sea,  ruffled  by  a  wind 
like  a  willful  and  contrarily  exerted  force, 
was  so  blue  that  its  color  was  lost  in  the  dark 
intensity  of  tone;  while  the  veils  of  space 
were  dissolved  in  arcs  of  expanding  light. 
The  island  seemed  unusually  solid  and  iso- 

[10] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
lated,  as  complete  within  itself  as  a  flower 
in  air,  and  saturated  with  romance.  That  was 
my  immediate  feeling  about  Cuba,  taking 
on  depth  across  water  profounder  than  in- 
digo ...  it  was  latent  with  the  emotional 
distinction  which  so  signally  stirred  me  to 
write. 

At  once,  in  imagination,  I  saw  the  ineffable 
bay  of  Guatanago,  where  buccaneers  careened 
their  ships  and,  in  a  town  of  pink  stucco  and 
windows  with  projecting  wooden  grilles, 
drank  and  took  for  figureheads  the  sacred 
images  of  churches  painted  blue.  On  the 
shore,  under  a  canopy  of  silk,  a  woman,  naked 
but  for  a  twist  of  bishop's  purple,  bound  her 
hair  in  gold  cloth.  From  where  she  stood,  in 
dyed  shadow,  a  figure  only  less  golden  than 
the  cloth,  she  heard  the  hollow  ring  of  the 
'caulking  malls  and  the  harsh  rustle  of  the 
palms.  Drawing  rapidly  nearer  to  what  was 
evidently  the  entrance  to  the  harbor  of  Ha- 
vana I  considered  the  possibilities  of  such  a 
story,  such  a  character: 

She  had  her  existence  in  the  seventeenth 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
century,  when  Morgan  marched  inland  to 
rape  Camagiiey — the  daughter,  without  doubt, 
of  a  captain  of  the  Armada  de  Barlevento,  the 
Windward  Fleet,  and  a  native  woman  taken  in 
violence;  a  shameless  wench  with  primitive 
feelings  enormously  complicated  by  the  heri- 
tage of  Spain's  civilization,  a  murderous,  sul- 
len, passionate  jade,  wholly  treacherous  and  in- 
stinct with  ferine  curiosity.  The  master  for 
her,  I  decided,  must  come  from  the  Court  of 
Charles,  the  London  of  the  Cavalier  Parlia- 
ment, a  gentleman  in  a  gay  foppery  masking 
a  steel  eaten  by  a  cruelty  like  a  secret  poison. 
It  would  be  a  story  bright  with  the  flames  of 
hell  and  violent  as  a  hurricane;  the  pages 
would  reflect  the  glare  of  the  sand  scrawled 
with  cocoanut  palms,  and  banked  with  man- 
groves; and,  at  the  end,  the  bishop's  purple 
would  be  a  cerecloth  and  the  gallows  chains 
sound  in  Xaymaca.  But,  above  everything 
else,  it  would  be  modern  in  psychology  and 
color  treatment,  written  with  that  realism  for 
which  the  only  excuse  was  to  provide  a  more 
exact  verisimilitude  for  romance. 

[12] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
The  Cuban  shore  was  now  so  close,  Havana 
so  imminent,  that  I  lost  my  story  in  a  new  in- 
terest. I  could  see  low  against  the  water  a 
line  of  white  buildings,  at  that  distance  purely 
classic  in  implication.  Then  it  was  that  I 
had  my  first  premonition  about  the  city  to- 
ward which  I  was  smoothly  progressing — I 
was  to  find  in  it  the  classic  spirit  not  of  Greece 
but  of  a  late  period ;  it  was  the  replica  of  those 
imagined  cities  painted  and  engraved  in  a 
wealth  of  marble  cornices  and  set  directly 
against  the  tranquil  sea.  There  was  already 
perceptible  about  it  the  air  of  unreality  that 
marked  the  strand  which  saw  the  Embarka- 
tion for  Cytherea. 

Nothing  could  have  made  me  happier  than 
this  realization;  an  extension  of  the  impres- 
sion of  a  haunting  dream  turned  into  solid 
fact.  The  buildings  multiplied  to  the  sight, 
bathed  in  a  glamorous  radiance;  and,  sud- 
denly, on  the  other  hand,  rose  Morro  Castle. 
That  structure,  small  and  compact  and  re- 
markably like  its  numerous  pictures,  gave  me 
a  distinct  feeling  of  disappointment.  Its  im- 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
portance  was  historic  rather  than  visible,  and 
needed,  for  appreciation,  a  different  mind 
from  mine.  But  the  narrowness  of  the  harbor 
entrance,  a  deep  thrust  of  blue  extending 
crookedly  into  the  land,  the  sense  of  crowded 
shipping  and  massed  city,  the  steamers  of  the 
world  and  broad  shaded  avenues  at  my  elbow, 
impressed  me  at  once  with  Havana's  unique 
personality. 

Nothing,  however,  was  more  ingratiating 
than  the  long  coraline  limestone  wall  of  the 
Cabanas  on  its  sere  abrupt  hill  at  the  left; 
ponderous  and  stained  brilliantly  pink  by 
time,  it  formed  a  miraculous  complement  to 
the  pseudo-classic  whiteness  below.  A  sea- 
wall built  into  a  wide  promenade  followed  the 
shore,  there  was  a  circular  pavilion  on  a 
flagged  plaza  piled  with  iron  chairs,  the  docks 
were  interspersed  with  small  public  gardens 
under  royal  palms,  and  everywhere  the  high 
windows  had  ornamental  balconies  empty  in 
the  morning  sun.  I  heard,  then,  the  voice  of 
Havana,  a  remarkably  active  staccato  voice, 
never,  I  was  to  learn,  sinking  to  quiet,  but 

[14] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
changing  at  night  into  a  different  yet  no  less 
disturbing  clamor. 

What  I  tried  to  discover,  rushed  through 
broad  avenues  and  streets  hardly  more  than 
passageways,  was  the  special  characteristic 
of  a  city  which  had  already  possessed  me. 
And,  ignorant  of  the  instantaneous  process 
that  formed  the  words,  I  told  myself  that  it 
was  a  mid-Victorian  Pompeii.  This  was  a 
modification  of  my  first  impression,  a  truer 
approximation,  for  it  expressed  the  totality  of 
marble  fagades  inadmissible  architecturally, 
yet  together  holding  a  surprising  and  pleasant 
unity.  No  one,  I  thought  excitedly,  had  ever 
rightly  appreciated  Havana;  it  required  a 
very  involved  understanding,  a  feeling  not 
entirely  admirable.  No,  it  wasn't  Hellenic, 
not  what  might  be  called  in  the  first  manner; 
it  hadn't  the  simplicity  of  great  spirit,  a  true 
epoch;  Havana  was  artificial,  exotic:  Spain 
touched  everywhere  by  the  tropics,  the  tropics 
—without  a  tradition — built  into  a  semblance 
of  the  baroque. 

It  was  rococo,  and  I  liked  it;  an  admission, 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
I  believe,  laying  me  open  to  certain  charges; 
for  the  rococo  was  universally  damned;  the 
Victorian  period  had  been  equally  condemned 
.  .  .  and  I  liked  it.  Why,  God  knew!  Or- 
nament without  use,  without  reference  to  its 
surface  and  purpose,  invited  contempt.  A 
woman  in  a  hoop  skirt  was  an  absurdity;  black 
walnut  furniture  carved  and  gilded  beyond 
recognition,  nonsense.  Yet  they  had  my  warm 
attachment.  Havana  claimed  me  for  its  own 
— a  city  where  I  could  sit  at  tables  in  the  open 
and  gaze  at  parterres  of  flowers  and  palms  and 
statues  and  fountains,  where,  in  the  evening,  a 
band  played  the  light  arias  of  La  Belle 

Helene. 

*     *     * 

To  illustrate  further  the  perversity  of  my 
impulses:  I  was  so  entirely  captivated  by  the 
Hotel  Inglaterra  that,  for  the  rest  of  the  day, 
I  was  indifferent  to  whatever  might  be  wait- 
ing outside.  The  deep  entrance  with  its  re- 
flected planes  of  subdued  light  and  servants  in 
cool  linen;  the  patio  with  water,  its  white 
arches  on  iridescent  tiles;  the  dining-room  laid 

['61 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
in  marble,  panelled  with  the  arms  of  Pontius 
Pilate,  the  bronze  lustre  of  the  tiling  and  the 
long  windows  on  the  Parque  exactly  as  I  had 
anticipated,  together  created  the  happy  effect 
of  a  bizarre  domain.  The  corridor  on  which 
my  room  opened  was  still  more  entrancing,  its 
arches  filled  with  green  latticework,  and  an 
octagonal  space  set  with  chairs  and  long- 
bladed  plants. 

Yet  the  room  itself,  perhaps  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  rooms  in  the  world,  easily  sur- 
passed what,  until  then,  I  had  seen.  There 
were  slatted  door  screens,  cream-colored  with 
a  sapphire-blue  glass  knob,  topped  in  an  elabo- 
rate Gothic  scrolling;  and  the  door  beyond, 
inconceivably  tall,  opened  on  an  interior  that 
seemed  to  reach  upward  without  any  limit. 
It  had,  of  course,  a  ceiling,  heavily  beamed  in 
dark  wood;  and  when,  later,  I  speculated 
carefully  on  its  height,  I  reached  the  conclu- 
sion that  it  was  twenty-five  feet  above  the 
grey-flowered  tiling  of  the  floor.  The  walls 
were  bare,  white;  about  their  base  was  laid  a 
line  of  green  glazed  tiles;  and  this,  except  for 

[17] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
the  glass  above  the  French  window,  was  the 
only  positive  note. 

The  window,  too,  towered  with  the  dignity 
of  an  impressive  entrance;  there  were  two  sets 
of  shutters,  the  inner  elaborately  slatted ;  and 
over  it  was  a  semi-circular  fanlight  of  in- 
tensely brilliant  colors — carmine  and  orange 
and  plum-purple,  cobalt  and  yellow.  It  was 
extraordinarily  vivid,  like  heaped  gorgeous 
fruit:  throughout  the  day  it  dominated  the 
closed  elusive  interior;  and  not  only  from  its 
place  on  high,  for  the  sun,  moving  across  that 
exposure,  cast  its  exact  replica  on  the  floor, 
over  the  frigidity  of  the  austere  iron  bed, 
down  one  wall  and  up  another. 

It  was  fascinating  merely  to  sit  and  watch 
that  chromatic  splash,  the  violent  color,  shift 
with  the  afternoon,  to  surrender  the  mind  to 
its  suggestions.  .  .  .  They,  as  well,  were  sin- 
gularly bright  and  illogical.  Such  glass, 
such  colors,  had  been  discarded  from  present 
decorative  schemes;  but  I  recalled  hints  of 
them  in  the  houses  of  eighteen  seventy;  I 
seemed  to  remember  them  in  pagoda-like  con- 

[18] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
servatories,  and  at  once  a  memory  of  my  child- 
hood returned.  Not  that  there  were,  actually, 
such  windows  at  Woodnest,  sombre  under  the 
tulip-poplars;  yet  the  impression  of  one  re- 
created the  feeling  of  the  other,  it  brought 
back  disturbingly  a  vanished  time  with  its 
figures  long  dead. 

Havana  was  identified  as  an  authentic  part 
of  my  inheritance.  I  was — in  a  purely  inner 
manner — to  understand  it,  to  have  for  it  the 
affectionate  recognition,  the  sense  of  familiar- 
ity, of  which  I  have  already  spoken.  The  city 
was  wholly  expressed  by  the  fanlight  spark- 
ling with  the  shifting  radiance  of  the  blazing 
day.  It  was  possible,  without  leaving  the 
room,  to  grasp  the  essential  spirit  of  a  place 
so  largely  unseen.  Then  it  occurred  to  me 
that,  indeed,  I  had  seen  Havana,  and  that  the 
wisest  thing  to  do  was  to  leave  at  once,  to  go 
back  with  my  strong  feeling  uncontaminated 
by  trivial  facts;  but  a  more  commonplace  im- 
pulse, a  limiting  materialism,  pointed  out 
that,  since  I  had  come  away  for  a  change  of 
scene,  I  had  best  realize  a  semblance  of  my 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
intention.  Still  those  colors,  like  a  bouquet 
of  translucent  tulips,  easily  outweighed  in  im- 
portance all  that  I  subsequently  gained;  they 
gave  the  emotional  pitch,  the  intellectual  note, 
of  whatever  followed — a  mood,  an  entire  ex- 
istence, into  which  I  walked  with  the  turning 
of  a  sapphire-blue  knob. 

For  the  rest  the  furniture  was  scant — a  wal- 
nut bureau  with  a  long  mirror,  necessary 
chairs,  and  an  adequate  bathroom  like  a  shaft 
with  shining  silver  faucets  at  its  bottom. 
From  outside,  even  through  the  heat  of  noon, 
the  sustained  activity  of  sound  floated  up 
through  the  shutters — the  incomplete  blend- 
ing of  harsh  traffic  alarms  and  blurred  cries 
announcing  newspapers. 

It  was  later  when  I  went  out  on  my  bal- 
cony: across  the  narrow  depth  of  San  Rafael 
Street  the  ornamented  bulk  of  the  Gallego 
Club — the  Club  and  the  opera  house  in  one- 
opposed  a  corner  against  the  sweep  of  the 
Parque  Central ;  and  to  the  right,  between  the 
glitter  of  shop  windows,  poured  an  unbroken 
procession  of  motors.  A  great  pillar  of  the 

[20] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
paseo  below  was  hung  with  gaily  covered 
magazines;  a  bootblack,  wrinkled  and  active, 
with  a  single  chair  on  a  high  stand,  was  clean- 
ing a  row  of  white  shoes,  obviously  from  the 
hotel ;  and  the  newsboys  were  calling  La  Pol- 
itica  Comica  in  a  long-drawn  minor  inflec- 
tion. 

The  sun,  that  I  had  seen  rising  on  the  un- 
discovered hills  of  Cuba,  was  sinking  behind 
the  apprehended  city;  it  touched  the  carya- 
tids of  the  Gallego  Club  and  enveloped,  in  a 
diminished  gold  like  a  fine  suffusion  of  pre- 
cious dust,  the  circular  avenue,  the  royal 
palms,  the  flambeau  trees  and  Indian  laurels, 
of  the  plaza.  The  whiteness  of  the  buildings, 
practically  unbroken,  everywhere  took  on  the 
tone  of  every  moment:  now  they  were  faintly 
aureate,  as  though  they  had  been  lightly 
touched  by  a  gilder's  brush;  the  diffused  shad- 
ows were  violet.  The  shadows  slowly  thick- 
ened and  merged;  they  seemed  to  swell  up- 
ward from  the  streets,  the  Parque;  and  the 
buildings,  in  turn,  became  lavender,  and  then, 
again,  a  glimmering  white.  Only  the  lifted 

[21] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
green  of  the  palms  was  changeless,  positive, 
until  it  was  lost  in  darkness. 

A  great  many  people  appeared  below,  mov- 
ing with  an  air  of  determination  on  definite 
ways.  The  faces  of  the  men  were  darkened 
by  the  contrast  of  their  linen;  I  couldn't  see 
their  features;  but  what  struck  me  at  once  was 
the  fact  that  there  were,  practically,  no  women 
along  the  streets.  It  was  a  tide  of  men. 
This,  at  first,  gave  me  an  impression  of  mo- 
notony, of  stupidity  —  women  were  an  abso- 
lute essential  to  the  variety  of  any  spectacle; 
and  here,  except  for  an  occasional  family 
group  hurrying  to  a  cafe,  a  rare  stolid  shape, 
they  were  utterly  lacking. 

The  reason,  however,  quickly  followed  the 
observed  truth;  this  was,  in  spirit,  Spain,  and 
Spain  was  saturated  with  Morocco,  a  land 
where  women,  even  the  poorest,  were  never 
publicly  exhibited.  Havana  was  a  city  of 
balconies,  of  barred  windows,  of  houses  im- 
penetrable, blank,  to  the  streets,  but  open  on 
the  garden  rooms  of  patios.  And  suddenly 
—while  the  moment  before  I  had  been  impa- 

[22] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
dent  at  the  bareness  resulting  from  their  ab- 
sence— I  was  overwhelmingly  conscious  of  the 
pervading  influence  of  charming  women. 
Here  they  were  infinitely  more  appealing 
than  in  places  where  they  were  set  out  in  the 
rows  of  a  market,  sometimes  like  flowers,  but 
more  often  resembling  turnips  and  squashes. 
Here,  with  extreme  flattery,  women  were  re- 
garded as  dangerous,  as  always  desirable,  and 
capable  of  folly. 

It  was  a  society  where  a  camellia  caught  in 
the  hair,  a  brilliant  glance  across  a  powdered 
cheek,  lace  drawn  over  a  vivid  mouth,  were 
not  for  nothing.  In  the  world  from  which  I 
had  come  these  gestures,  beauties,  existed ;  but 
they  were  general,  and  meaningless,  rather 
than  special — the  expression  of  a  conventional 
vanity  without  warmth.  There  was  an  agree- 
ment that  any  one  might  look,  the  intensest 
gaze  was  invited,  with  the  understanding  that 
almost  none  should  desire;  and  a  cloak  of  hy- 
pocrisy had  been  the  result;  either  that  or  the 
beauty  was  mechanical,  the  gesture  furtive 
and  hard. 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
For  Havana  a  woman  was,  in  principle,  a 
flower  with  delicate  petals  easily  scattered,  a 
perfume  not  to  be  rudely,  indiscriminately, 
spent;  a  rose,  it  was  the  implication,  had  its 
moment,  its  perfection  of  eager  flushed  loveli- 
ness, during  which  what  man  would  not  reach 
out  his  hand?  After  that  .  .  .  but  the  seed 
pods  were  carefully,  jealously,  tended.  And 
here,  in  addition  to  so  much  else,  was  another 
shared  attitude  drawing  me  toward  Havana — 
an  enormous  preference  for  women  who  had 
the  courage  of  their  emotions  over  those  com- 
pletely circumspect  except  in  situations  mor- 
ally and  financially  solid. 


*     * 


My  dressing  for  dinner  I  delayed  luxuri- 
ously, smoking  the  last  Dimitrino  cigarette 
found  in  a  pocket,  and  leaving  the  wet  prints 
of  my  feet  on  the  polished  tiles  of  the  floor. 
I  was  glad  that  I  had  brought  a  trunk,  vari- 
ously filled,  in  place  of  merely  a  bag,  as  I 
might  have  done;  for  it  was  evident  that  Ha- 
vana required  many  changes  of  clothes.  It 

04] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
was  a  city  which  to  enjoy  demanded  a  metic- 
ulous attention  to  trifles.  For  one  thing  it 
was  going  to  be  hot,  April  was  well  advanced ; 
and  the  glorietas,  the  brightly  illuminated 
open  cafes,  the  thronged  Prado  and  operatic 
Malecon,  the  general  air  of  tropical  expen- 
siveness,  insisted  on  the  ornamental  fitness  of 
its  idlers. 

I  debated  comfortably  the  security  of  a  din- 
ner coat,  slightly  varied,  perhaps,  by  white 
flannels;  but  in  the  end  decided  in  favor  of  a 
more  informal  jacket  of  Chinese  silk  with  the 
flannels.  A  shirt,  the  socks  and  scarf,  were 
objects  of  separate  importance ;  but  when  they 
were  combined  there  was  a  prevailing  shade 
of  green.  ...  I  had  no  inclination  to  apolo- 
gize for  lingering  over  these  details,  but  it 
might  be  necessary  to  warn  the  seekers  after 
noble  truisms  that  I  had  no  part  in  their  right- 
eous purpose.  Even  noble  truths,  in  their 
popular  definitions,  had  never  been  a  part  of 
my  concern:  at  the  beginning  I  was  hopelessly 
removed  from  them,  and  what  was  an  in- 
stinct had  become,  in  an  experience  of  life  not 

[25] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
without  supporting  evidence,  the  firmest  pos- 
sible attitude.  A  tone  of  candor,  if  my  reflec- 
tions were  to  have  the  slightest  interest  or 
value,  was  my  first  necessity;  and  candor  com- 
pelled me  to  admit  that  I  thought  seriously 
about  the  jacket  which  finally  slipped 
smoothly  over  my  shoulders. 

It  was  an  undeniable  fact  that  I  was  newly 
in  a  land  of  errormous  interest,  which,  just 
then,  held  the  most  significant  and  valuable 
crop  growing  on  earth.  But  that  didn't  de- 
tain my  imagination  for  a  moment.  The  Ha- 
vana that  delighted  me,  into  which  I  found 
myself  so  happily  projected,  was  a  city  of 
promenading  and  posted  theatre  programmes, 
of  dinners  and  drinks  and  fragrant  cigars.  I 
was  aware  that  from  such  things  I  might,  in 
the  end,  profit;  but  I'd  get  nothing,  nothing  in 
the  world,  from  stereotyped  sentiments  and 
places  and  solemn  gabbled  information. 

On  top  of  this  I  had  a  fixed  belief  in  the  ac- 
tual importance  of,  say,  a  necktie — for  myself 
of  course;  I  was  not  referring  to  the  neckties 
of  the  novelists  with  a  mission,  lost  in  the  di- 

[26] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
lemma  of  elevating  mankind.  A  black  string, 
or  none  at  all,  served  their  superiority.  But 
for  the  light-minded  the  claim  of  a  Bombay 
foulard  against  the  solider  shade  of  an  Irish 
poplin  was  a  delicate  question;  for  the  light- 
minded  the  choice  of  one  word  in  preference 
to  another — entirely  beneath  the  plane  of  a 
mission — was  a  business  for  blood,  an  overt 
act.  And  with  me  there  was  a  correspond- 
ence between  the  two,  a  personal  exterior  as 
nicely  selected  as  possible  and  the  mental  at- 
titude capable  of  exquisite  choice  in  diction. 
But  this  was  no  more  than  a  development  of 
all  that  I  first  admitted,  a  repetition  of  my 
pleasure  at  being  in  Havana,  a  place  where 
the  election  of  a  cocktail  was  invested  with 
gravity.  And,  carefully  finished  except  for 
the  flower  I'd  get  below,  I  was  entirely  in  har- 
mony with  the  envelopment,  the  adventure,  to 
which  my  persistent  good  luck  had  brought 
me. 

The  elevator  going  down  was  burdened 
with  expensive  women,  their  bodies  delicately 
evident  under  clinging  fragile  materials,  their 

[27] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
powdered  throats  hung  with  the  clotted  iri- 
descence of  pearls;  the  cage  was  filled  with 
soft  breathing  and  faint  provocative  perfumes 
—the  special  lure  of  flowers  which  nature  had 
denied  to  them  as  women.  It  was,  I  told  my- 
self, all  very  reprehensible  and  delightful : 

Here  were  creatures,  anatomically  planned 
for  the  sole  end  of  maternity,  who  had  wil- 
fully, wisely  I  felt,  elevated  the  mere  pre- 
liminary of  their  purpose  to  the  position  of  its 
whole  consummation.  More  intoxicated  by 
sheer  charm  than  by  the  bearing  of  children, 
resentful  of  the  thickened  ankles  of  their  im- 
memorial duty,  they  proclaimed  by  every  en- 
hanced and  seductive  curve  that  their  inten- 
tion was  magnetic  rather  than  economic. 
They  were,  however,  women  of  my  own  land, 
secure  in  that  convention  which  permitted 
them  exposure  with  immunity,  and  here,  in 
Havana,  they  failed  to  interest  me;  their 
voices,  too,  were  sharp,  irritable;  and  even  in 
the  contracted  space  of  the  elevator  their 
elaborate  backs  were  so  brutally  turned  on  the 
men  with  them — men  correct  enough  except 

[28] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
for  their  studs — the  hard   feminine  tyranny 
of  the  chivalrous  United  States  was  so  starkly 
upheld,  that  I  escaped  with  a  sigh  of  relief 
into  a  totally  different  atmosphere. 

The  lower  hall,  the  patio  and  dining-room 
on  the  left,  were  brilliant  with  life,  the  wing- 
like  flutter  of  fans ;  and  it  would  be  necessary, 
I  saw,  to  have  my  cocktail  in  the  patio;  but 
before  that,  following  a  purely  instinctive 
course,  I  walked  out  to  the  paseo  in  front  of 
the  hotel.  The  white  buildings  beyond  the 
dark  foliage  of  the  Parque  were  coruscant 
with  electric  signs,  and,  their  utilitarian  pur- 
pose masked  in  an  unfamiliar  language,  they 
shared  with  the  alabaster  of  the  facades,  the 
high  fronds  of  the  royal  palms  and  the  monu- 
ment to  Marti,  in  the  tropical,  the  classic,  ro- 
manticism. 

Hardly  had  I  appeared,  gazing  down  the 
illuminated  arcade,  when  a  man  approached 
me  with  a  flat  wide  basket  of  flowers.  There 
were,  inevitably,  roses,  tea  roses  as  pale  as  the 
yellow  of  champagne,  gardenias,  so  smooth 
and  white  that  they  seemed  unreal,  heavy  with 

[29] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
odor;  those  I  had  expected,  but  what  surprised 
me  were  some  sprigs  of  orange  blossom  with 
an  indefinite  sweetness  that  was  yet  percepti- 
ble above  the  thicker  scents.  I  chose  the 
latter  immediately,  and  the  flower  vendor, 
wholly  comprehensive  of  my  mood,  placed  the 
boutonniere  in  my  jacket.  The  moment,  now, 
had  arrived  for  a  Daiquiri :  seated  near  the 
cool  drip  of  the  fountain,  where  a  slight  stir 
of  air  seemed  to  ruffle  the  fringed  mantone  of 
a  bronze  dancing  Andalusian  girl,  I  lingered 
over  the  frigid  mixture  of  Ron  Bacardi,  sugar, 
and  a  fresh  vivid  green  lime. 

It  was  a  delicate  compound,  nxDt  so  good  as 
I  was  to  discover  later  at  the  Telegrafo,  but 
still  a  revelation,  and  I  was  devoutly  thankful 
to  be  sitting,  at  that  hour  in  the  Inglaterra, 
with  such  a  drink.  It  elevated  my  content- 
ment to  an  even  higher  pitch;  and,  with  a  de- 
tached amusement,  I  recalled  the  fact  that  far- 
ther north  prohibition  was  formally  in  effect. 
Unquestionably  the  cocktail  on  my  table  was 
a  dangerous  agent,  for  it  held,  in  its  shallow 
glass  bowl  slightly  encrusted  with  undissolved 

[30] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
sugar,  the  power  of  a  contemptuous  indiffer- 
ence to  fate;  it  set  the  mind  free  of  responsi- 
bility; obliterating  both  memory  and  to-mor- 
row, it  gave  the  heart  an  adventitious  feeling 
of  superiority  and  momentarily  vanquished 
all  the  celebrated,  the  eternal,  fears. 

Yes,  that  was  the  danger  of  skilfully  pre- 
pared intoxicating  drinks.  .  .  .  The  word  in- 
toxicating adequately  expressed  their  power, 
their  menace  to  orderly  monotonous  resigna- 
tion. A  word,  I  thought  further,  debased  by 
moralists  from  its  primary  ecstatic  content. 
Intoxication  with  Ron  Bacardi,  with  May, 
with  passion,  was  a  state  threatening  to  priv- 
ilege, abhorrent  to  authority.  And,  since  the 
dull  were  so  fatally  in  the  majority,  they  had 
succeeded  in  attaching  a  heavy  penalty  to 
whatever  lay  outside  their  lymphatic  under- 
standing. They  had,  as  well,  made  the  term 
gay  an  accusation  before  their  Lord,  con- 
founding it  with  loose,  so  that  now  a  gay 
girl — certainly  the  only  girl  worth  a  ribbon  or 
the  last  devotion — was  one  bearing  upon  her 
graceful  figure,  for  she  was  apt  to  be  repre- 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
hensibly  'graceful,  the  censure  of  a  society 
open  to  any  charge  other  than  that  of  gaiety  in 
either  of  its  meanings.  A  ridiculous,  a  tragic, 
conclusion,  I  told  myself  indifferently:  but 
then,  with  a  fresh  Daiquiri  and  a  sprig  of 
orange  blossoms  in  my  buttonhole,  it  meant 
less  than  nothing.  It  grew  cooler,  and  an 
augmented  stir  set  in  motion  toward  the  din- 
ing-room, where  the  files  of  damask-spread 
tables  held  polished  silver  water-bottles  and 
sugar  in  crystal  jars  with  spouts. 


The  wisdom  of  the  attention  I  had  given 
to  my  appearance  was  at  once  evident  in  the 
table  to  which  the  head  waiter  conducted  me. 
Small  and  reserved  with  a  canted  chair,  it  was 
directly  at  one  of  the  long  windows  on  the 
Parque  Central.  This,  at  first  sight,  on  the 
part  of  its  arbiter,  would  not  have  been  merely 
an  affair  for  money — he  had  his  eye  on  the  ef- 
fect of  the  dining-room  as  a  whole,  as  an  ex- 
panse of  the  utmost  decorative  correctness,  and 
there  were  a  number  of  men  with  quite 

[32] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
pretty  women,  a  great  asset  publicly,  who 
had  been  given  places  in  the  center  of  the 
room.  Yes,  where  I  was  seated  the  ruffled 
curtains  were  swayed  by  the  night  breeze  al- 
most against  my  chair,  a  brilliant  section  of 
the  plaza  was  directly  at  my  shoulder,  and  I 
was  pervaded  by  the  essential  feeling  of  hav- 
ing the  best  possible  situation. 

This  was  not,  perhaps,  true  of  characters 
more  admirable  than  mine:  but  if  I  had  been 
seated  behind  one  of  the  pillars,  buried  in  an 
obscure  angle,  my  spirits  would  have  suffered 
a  sharp  decline.  I  should  have  thought,  tem- 
porarily, less  of  Havana,  of  myself,  and  of  the 
world.  The  passionate  interest  in  living,  the 
sense  of  aesthetic  security,  that  resulted  in  my 
turning  continually  to  the  inconceivable  slav- 
ery of  writing,  would  have  been  absent.  But 
seated  in  one  of  the  most  desirable  spots  in  ex- 
istence, a  dining-room  of  copper  glazed  tiles 
open  on  the  tropics,  about  to  begin  a  dinner 
with  shrimps  in  the  pink — the  veritable  rose 
— of  perfection,  while  a  head  waiter,  a  tri- 
umph of  intelligent  sympathy,  conferred  with 

[33] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
me  on  the  delicate  subject  of  wines,   I   felt 
equal  to  prose  of  matchless  loveliness. 

The  dinner,  finally,  as  good  dinners  were 
apt  to  be,  was  small,  simple,  with — the  result 
of  a  prolonged  consideration — a  bottle  of 
Marquis  de  Riscal.  All  the  while  the  kaleid- 
oscope of  the  Parque  was  revolving  in  patterns 
of  bright  yellows,  silver,  and  indigo.  Pas- 
sersby  were  remarkably  graphic  and  near:  a 
short  man  with  a  severe  expression  and  a  thick 
grey  beard  suddenly  appeared  in  the  open 
window  and  demanded  that  I  buy  a  whole 
lottery  ticket;  a  sallow  individual  from  with- 
out unfolded  a  bright  glazed  sheaf  of  unspeak- 
ably stupid  American  magazines;  farther  off, 
the  crowd  eddied  through  the  lanes  between 
the  innumerable  chairs  drawn  up  companion- 
ably  on  the  plaza.  At  a  table  close  by,  a  fam- 
ily of  Cubans  were  supplementing  the  courses 
of  formal  dining  with  an  endless  vivacious 
chatter,  a  warmth  of  interest  charming  to 
follow. 

The  father,  stout,  with  an  impressive  mous- 
tache of  which  not  one  hair  seemed  uncounted 

[34] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
or  mislaid,  regarded  his  short  fat  wife,  his  tall 
slim  son,  and  his  two  entrancing  daughters 
with  an  impartially  active  and  affectionate  at- 
tention. The  girls  were  young,  one  perhaps 
fifteen  and  the  other  not  more  than  a  year  or 
so  older,  though  they  both  managed  lorgnons 
with  an  ease  and  impertinent  frankness  that 
an  older  woman  might  well  have  envied, 
while  they  talked  in  rushes  of  vivid  Spanish 
with  an  emphasis  of  delectable  shrugged 
shoulders,  and,  recognizing  an  acquaintance, 
exhibited  smiles  as  dazzling  as  only  youth 
knew.  The  boy,  however,  engaged  me  more 
strongly;  a  tone  darker  than  the  others,  in  re- 
pose his  face,  delicate  in  feature,  was  grave, 
reflective;  his  smooth  black  hair  grew  into  a 
peak  on  his  brow,  his  gaze  was  considerate, 
direct,  and  his  mouth  sensitive.  Cuba,  I 
thought,  at  its  best;  and  here  that  was  very 
good  indeed.  Any  such  degree  of  mingled 
dignity  and  the  highly  impressionable,  of  re- 
serve and  flexibility,  was  absent  from  the 
cruder  young  of  the  north. 

He  had,  at  the  same  time,  an  indefinable  air 

[35] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
of  melancholy,  a  bearing  that,  while  not  de- 
void of  pride,  belonged  to  a  minor  people, 
to  an  island  the  ultimate  fate  of  which — in  a 
political  word  of  singular  faithlessness — was 
hidden  in  shadow.  An  affair  of  mere  simple 
courage,  of  execution  for  an  ideal  by  Spanish 
rifles  in  a  Cabanas  foss,  he  would  have  borne 
with  brilliant  success;  he'd  have  ornamented 
charmingly  the  security  of  a  great  coffee  es- 
tate in  Pinar  del  Rio;  it  was  possible  that  he 
might  be  distinguished  in  finance;  but  there 
was  not  back  of  him  the  sense  of  sheer  weight, 
of  ponderous  land,  that  gave,  for  example,  the 
chance  young  Englishman  his  conscious  secur- 
ity, the  American  his  slightly  shrill  material 
confidence. 

This  Cuban's  particular  quality,  it  seemed 
to  me,  belonged  to  the  past,  to  an  age  when 
men  wore  jewelled  buckles  and  aristocracy 
was  an  advantage  rather  than  a  misfortune. 
He  had  about  him  the  graceful  fatality  now 
so  bitterly  attacked  by  the  widening  power  of 
what  was  heroically  referred  to  as  the  peo- 
ple. He  represented,  from  the  crown  of  his 

[36] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
lustrous  hair  to  his  narrow  correct  dancing 
shoes,  in  his  shapely  hands  and  dark  fine  skin, 
privilege  and  sequestered  gold.  Outrages,  I 
had  heard,  soon  to  be  forever  overthrown!  It 
was  possible  that  both  the  charges  and  the 
threatened  remedy  were  actualities,  and  that 
privilege  would  disappear  .  .  .  from  one 
hand  to  another,  and  great  lawns  be  cut  up 
into  cabbage  patches  and  Empire  ball-rooms 
converted  into  communal  halls  for  village 
rancor. 

Not  much,  in  the  way  of  benefit,  could  fol- 
low that.  And  women  in  starched  linen  col- 
lars, with  starched  theories  of  civic  conscious- 
ness, would  hardly  be  an  improvement  on 
fragrant  memories  of  satin,  moments  of  pas- 
sion and  frailty,  and  the  beauty  of  tenderness. 
A  maze  of  clipped  box,  old  emerald  sod,  rep- 
resented a  timeless  striving  for  superiority, 
for,  at  least,  the  illusion  of  triumph  over  the 
littorals  of  slime;  and  their  destruction  in 
waves  of  hysteria,  sentimentality,  and  envy 
was  immeasurably  disastrous.  All  of  this  I 
saw  reflected  in  the  boy  with  peaked  hair  at 

[37] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
the  next  table.     He  took  a  cigarette  from  a 
black  silk  case,   and  I  was  immediately  re- 
minded of  my  cigar. 

It  had  been  chosen  with  immense  care  in  the 
Inglaterra  cafe  for  bonbons  and  souvenirs, 
liqueurs  and  cigars.  How  remarkable  it  was, 
I  had  thought,  hovering  above  the  case,  which 
contained  a  bewildering  choice  of  shapes  and 
colors,  to  be  in  a  land  where  all  the  cigars 
were,  in  the  sense  I  knew,  imported.  I  hes- 
itated for  a  minute  or  more  between  a  Lar- 
ranaga  and  a  banquet  Corona,  and  finally  de- 
cided on  the  former.  It  was  as  long  as  the 
cigar  called  Fancy  Tales,  but  slightly  thicker 
and  rolled  to  a  point  at  either  end;  and  the 
first  breath  of  its  smoke,  drifting  in  a  blue 
cloud  away  from  the  window,  told  me  that 
until  then  I  had  known  but  little  of  tobacco. 
Coffee  so  black  that  it  stained  the  white  shell 
of  its  cup;  a  diminutive  glass  of  Grand  Mar- 
nier, the  distilled  last  saturation  of  oranges 
and  fin  champagne;  and  the  Larranaga,  the 
color  of  oak  leaves  freshly  brown,  combined  in 
a  transcending  magic  of  contentment. 

[38] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
The  point  was — my  special  inhibition  as  a 
traveler — that  I  didn't  want  to  move;  I  had 
no  wish  to  speak  to  anyone  or  see  what,  par- 
ticularly, I  should  have  hurried  away  to  view. 
That  impatience  I  had  served  when  I  was 
twenty-one,  in  Naples ;  a  city  uniquely  planned 
for  morbid  and  natural  curiosity.  There  the 
animated  frescoes  of  Pompeii  had  been  posed, 
at  two  lire  a  figure,  before  my  assumption  of 
mature  experience.  But  now,  past  forty,  I 
was  without  the  ambition  and  desire  to  follow 
the  cabs  of  the  American  business  men  who, 
in  the  company  of  patient  and  fatigued  Cu- 
bans, were,  in  the  interest  of  vague  appoint- 
ments, bidding  their  families  elaborate  good 
evenings. 

Later  it  was  inevitable  that  I  should  get  to 
the  theatres,  hear  whatever  music  offered,  and 
see  all  the  dancing,  Spanish  and  Cuban,  in  the 
city  of  Havana,  but  not  to-night.  My  present 
pleasure  was  not  to  be  wasted  in  the  bother  of 
movement  and  a  probable  mistake.  The  ci- 
gar continued  to  veil  me  in  its  reflective  smoke 
for  another  half  hour,  there  was  more  coffee 

[39] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
in  the  pot.  The  tempered  heat  of  the  day  lay 
over  me  like  a  spell,  like  an  armor  against 
the  chill,  the  gaunt  winds  and  rain,  of  the 
north.  The  scent  of  the  sprig  of  orange  blos- 
soms was  just  perceptible,  at  once  faint  and 
laden  with  the  potency  of  a  magical  grove. 


*     * 


The  weather,  the  temperature  and  special 
atmospheric  envelopment  of  Havana,  was,  I 
was  certain,  different  from  any  other,  its  heat 
modified  by  the  winds  that  moved  across  the 
island  at  night,  at  least  from  this  shore,  and 
the  days  flooded  with  an  incandescent  sunlight 
like  burning  magnesium.  Stirring  slowly 
about  my  room  before  breakfast,  the  slatted 
shutters  bowed  against  the  already  blazing 
day,  a  thread  of  cigarette  smoke  climbing 
hopelessly  toward  the  far  ceiling,  I  thought 
of  the  idiotic  popular  conviction  that  the 
weather  was  a  topic  for  stupid  minds.  The 
reverse,  certainly,  was  true,  since,  inbound 
with  all  the  settings  of  life,  all  nature,  the 

[40] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
weather  offered  an  illimitable  range  of  sug- 
gestion. 

It  had  been  the  great  discovery  of  imagina- 
tive prose — the  novel  for  which  we  care  most 
had  been  largely  the  result  of  that  gained  ap- 
preciation; and  its  absence  in  older  books, 
placed  in  a  vacuum,  entirely  accounted  for 
their  dry  unreality.  What,  for  instance,  were 
the  novels  of  Thomas  Hardy  but  splendid  rec- 
ords of  the  countryside  weather,  for  nature 
and  weather  were  one.  This,  more  than  any 
other  force,  conditioned  men,  stamping  them 
out  with  an  ice  age,  burning  them  black  in 
Africa  .  .  .  setting  royal  palms  by  the  doors 
of  the  Hotel  Inglaterra  and  willows  along  my 
lower  lawn. 

The  difference  between  Havana  and  West 
Chester  was  exactly  that  difference  in  their 
foliage,  in  the  low  April  green  of  one  and  the 
harsh  high  fronds  of  the  other.  The  quality, 
the  weather,  that  made  the  trees  made 
equally  the  men,  just  as  it  dictated  their  lives, 
the  houses  they  lived  in,  their  industries  and 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
planted  grains.  This  was  true  not  only  of  the 
country  but  of  the  city,  too,  of  George  Moore 
as  well  as  Hardy;  for  though  Moore  belonged 
principally  to  salons  and  the  discreet  interiors 
of  broughams,  a  good  half  of  the  beauty  of  his 
pages  was  due  to  his  response  to  the  quality 
of  spring  against  a  smoke-blackened  London 
wall,  the  laburnum  blossoming  in  his  Dublin 
garden. 

The  slightest  impression  of  Havana  must 
be  founded  on  a  sensitive  recognition  of  the 
crystal  light  and  printed  shadows  which,  in 
addition  to  its  architecture  of  fact,  brought  an- 
other of  sweeping  illusion.  In  the  morning 
the  plazas  glittered  in  a  complete  revelation 
of  every  hard  carving  and  leaf  and  painted 
kiosk,  but  later  the  detail  merged  in  airy  di- 
agonal structures  of  shade.  Modified,  infre- 
quently, by  the  gorgeous  cumulous  clouds 
drifting  from  the  upward  thrust,  the  anchor- 
age, of  the  Andes,  the  entire  process  of  the 
hours  was  upset.  This  was  not  simply  a  varia- 
tion of  inanimate  surface,  it  had  an  exact 
counterpart  in  the  emotions:  bowed  by  an  in- 

[42] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
superable  blaze  or  upright  in  the  veiled  sun, 
the  attitude  of  harmony  was  profoundly  af- 
fected. The  night  was  altogether  separate, 
a  time,  I  gathered,  when  it  seldom  rained ;  and 
there  was  never  another  city  that  took  advan- 
tage of  the  night  like  Havana.  Released  from 
the  resplendent  tyranny  of  the  sun,  everyone, 
it  appeared,  disdaining  sleep,  lingered  in  the 
plazas,  the  cafes,  and  along  the  sea-walls,  until 
dawn  threatened.  Here  the  dark  was  not 
alone  a  stage  for  nocturnal  plans  and  figures: 
it  was  without  strangeness  or  fear  for  the  Cu- 
bans thronging  abroad,  on  foot  and  in  motors, 
early  and  late.  The  whiteness  of  the  build- 
ings, too,  even  where  they  were  not  illumi- 
nated, defined  spaces  never  obscure;  the  city 
was  never  wholly  lost,  obliterated  by  the  im- 
ponderable blackness  of  the  north.  All  this, 
every  aspect  of  Havana's  being,  was  the  gift 
—the  dangerous  gift — of  its  situation,  its 
weather.  The  blinding  day,  the  city  folded 
in  a  sparkling  night,  like  a  vision  in  blanched 
satin  with  fireflies  in  her  hair,  were  nothing 
more  than  meteorological. 

[43] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
For  myself,  my  entire  attitude  was  differ- 
ent in  the  room  I  now  inhabited  from  the  in- 
herent feeling,  in  New  York,  of  the  Algon- 
quin. I  was,  in  white  flannels  and  brown 
Holland,  with  roses  against  the  mirror  of  the 
bureau,  another  man ;  not  only  my  mentality 
but  my  physical  bearing  was  changed.  Here 
I  was  an  individual  who,  moving  about  for 
an  hour  or  so  in  the  morning,  spent  the  day 
until  late  afternoon  in  some  quiet  and  cool 
inner  spaciousness.  That,  I  appreciated  at 
once,  was  one  of  the  comfortable  peculiarities 
of  Havana :  it  was  always  possible  to  be  cool- 
in  a  cafe  with  the  marble  floor  sprinkled  with 
water;  at  the  entrance  of  the  Inglaterra, 
where,  however,  the  chairs  were  the  most  un- 
comfortable in  the  world ;  or,  better  yet,  with 
a  book,  a  naranjada,  and  pajamas,  transiently 
at  home. 

For  the  iced  refrescos  of  Cuba  I  had  been 
prepared;  and  at  breakfast,  though  that,  I 
found  later,  was  not  its  hour,  I  chose,  rather 
than  a  naranjada,  a  pina  colado — a  glass, 
nearly  as  large  and  quite  as  thin  as  possible,  of 

[44] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
the  chilled  essence  of  pineapple.  A  remark- 
able, a  delightful,  concoction.  Later  I  heard 
the  refrescos  referred  to  contemptuously  by 
Americans  whose  attitude  toward  the  Cubans 
paralleled  their  opinion  of  the  local  drinks. 
They  elected  whiskey,  at  times  condescending 
to  gin,  and  the  effect  was  portentous.  Some 
sat  near  me  now,  with  breakfasts  of  bubbling 
ham  and  crisped  eggs,  lamenting  the  coffee. 

It  was  doubtless  part  of  the  hypnotism  of 
my  liking  for  Havana  that  reconciled  me  to 
the  coffee,  poured  simultaneously  with  hot 
salted  milk  into  the  cup.  I  accepted  it  at  once, 
together  with  a  cut  French  roll  ingeniously 
buttered.  Other  efforts  were  made,  through  a 
window,  to  sell  a  wallpaper  of  lottery  tickets; 
the  vendor  of  magazines  now  put  forward  the 
Havana  Post,  printed  in  English;  the  curtains 
hung  motionless,  a  transparent  film  on  the 
bright  space  beyond. 

There  was  nothing  I  had  to  do,  or  see,  no 
duty  to  myself  to  fulfill;  and,  watching  the 
stir  of  tourist  departure,  I  was  thankful  for 
my  total  lack  of  uncomfortable  incentive.  I 

[45] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
had,  for  instance,  no  intention  of  ascending  the 
height  of  Morro  Castle,  which — I  had  hardly 
needed  the  assurance — included  a  fatiguing 
number  of  stairs;  nor  of  becoming  familiar 
with  Cabanas  fortress.  It  had  been  quite 
enough  to  see  in  passing  that  long  pink  wall 
and  know  that  there  were  old  batteries  of 
cannon  embossed  with  the  sovereign  names  of 
Spain.  There  were  no  picture  galleries;  and 
in  Havana  the  churches  were  rich  in  neither 
tradition  nor  beauty,  and  the  convents  of 
early  days  had  been  turned  into  warehouses. 
It  was,  on  the  whole,  a  city  without  obtrusive 
history;  even  its  first  site  was  on  the  other 
side  of  the  island ;  the  wall,  except  for  a  frag- 
ment or  two,  had  gone;  its  early  aspects  were 
practically  absorbed  by  the  later  spirit  that 
had  captivated  me.  Here,  if  ever,  was  a  place 
in  which  honesty  of  mood  could  be  completely 
indulged. 

A  state  not  innocent  of  danger  to  the  Puri- 
tan tradition — lately  assaulted  with  useless 
vigor — of  suppression;  for  to  the  Latin  ac- 
ceptance of  the  whole  of  life  had  been  added 

[46] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
the  passions  of  the  tropics.  Cuba  had  cyni- 
cally realized  this,  and  multiplied  a  natural 
frankness  with  a  specialized  attention  to  the 
northern  masculinity  I  had  seen  leaving  the 
hotel  at  odd  hours  last  night.  I  felt  even  so 
soon,  with  prohibition  a  reality,  that  our  na- 
tional prudery  was  a  very  unfortunate  influ- 
ence indeed  in  Havana.  The  season  was  at  an 
end — only  a  few  days  of  the  racing  remained 
—so  I  had  missed  the  obvious  worst;  but  traces 
of  the  corruption  of  the  dull,  the  dull  them- 
selves in  diminishing  numbers,  lingered. 

Havana,  in  common  with  other  foreign 
countries,  and  with  so  many  golden  reasons  to 
the  contrary,  had  no  general  liking  for  Ameri- 
cans. The  few  who  had  understood  Cuba, 
either  living  there  or  journeying  with  discre- 
tion, were  most  warmly  appreciated;  and, 
characteristically,  it  was  they  more  than  the 
natives  who  were  principally  disconcerted  by 
the  released  waggishness  of  Maine  and  Ohio 
and  Illinois.  But  the  majority  were  merely 
exploited.  There  was,  certainly,  something 
on  the  other  side  of  the  fence,  for  the  Cubans 

[47] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
were  morbidly  sensitive  about  their  land,  their 
monuments  and  martyrs,  not  necessarily  im- 
pressive to  the  Anglo-Saxon  heritage  and 
temperament.  There  were  fundamental  ra- 
cial differences,  with  a  preponderant  ultimate 
weight  in  favor  of  continents  as  opposed  to 
islands.  The  fascination  Havana  had  for  me 
wasn't  inevitable;  I  was  only  considering  with 
regret,  aesthetic  rather  than  moral,  the  effect 
on  Cuba  of  any  prostitution. 


As,  in  a  temporary  stoppage  of  its  circular 
traffic,  I  walked  across  the  Parque  Central,  its 
limits  seemed  to  extend  indefinitely,  as  if  it 
had  become  a  Sahara  of  pavement  exposed 
to  the  white  core  of  the  sun ;  and  I  passed  with 
a  feeling  of  immense  relief  into  the  shade  of 
a  book-shop  at  the  head  of  Obispo  Street, 
where  the  intolerable  glare  slowly  faded  from 
my  vision  as  I  fingered  the  heaps  of  volumes 
paper-bound  in  a  variegated  brightness  of 
color  and  design.  In  any  book-shop  I  was 
entirely  at  home,  contented ;  and  here  specially 

[48] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
I  was  prepossessed  with  the  idea  of  buying  a 
great  number  of  the  novels  solely  for  their 
covers — in  short,  making  a  collection  of  Span- 
ish pictorial  bindings.  But  the  novels,  I  dis- 
covered, were,  even  in  paper,  almost  a  peso 
each;  and  since  I  was  reluctant  to  invest  two 
hundred  or  more  dollars  in  a  mere  beginning, 
the  idea  vanished.  Their  imaginative  quality, 
however,  the  drawing  and  color  printing,  were 
excellent,  far  better  than  ours;  in  fact,  we 
owned  nothing  at  all  like  them. 

They  had  a  freedom  of  cruelty,  a  brutality 
of  statement,  of  truth,  absent  in  American  senti- 
mentality :  where  women  were  without  clothes 
they  were  naked,  anatomically  accounted 
for,  as  were  the  men;  and  the  symbolical 
representations  of  labor  and  injustice  were  in- 
stinct with  blood  and  anguish.  A  surprising 
number  of  stories  by  Blasco  Ibanez  were  evi- 
dent; and  it  struck  me  that  if  I  had  read  him 
in  those  casiral  bright  copies,  without  the  pon- 
derous weight  of  his  American  volumes  and 
uncritical  reputation,  I  might  have  found  a 
degree  of  enjoyment.  There  were  a  great 

[49] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
many  magazines,  mostly  Spanish,  gayly 
covered  but  with  the  stupidest  contents  im- 
aginable— the  bad  reproductions  of  contem- 
porary photographs  on  vile  grey  paper;  al- 
though one,  La  Esefa,  admirably  reproduced, 
in  vivid  color  and  titles,  the  Iberian  spirit  of 
the  lighter  Goya. 

Though  I  had  been  on  narrow  streets  before, 
I  had  never  seen  one  with  the  dramatic  quality 
of  Obispo.  Hands  might  almost  have  touched 
across  its  paved  way,  and  the  sidewalks,  no 
more  than  amplified  curbs,  hardly  allowed  for 
the  width  of  a  skirt.  It  was  cooled  by  shadow, 
except  for  a  narrow  brilliant  strip,  and  the 
open  shops  were  like  caverns.  The  windows 
were  particularly  notable,  for  they  held  the 
wealth,  the  choice,  of  what  was  offered  within : 
diamonds  and  Panama  hats,  tortoise  shell, 
Canary  Island  embroidery,  and  perfumery. 
There  were  cafes  that  specialized  in  minute 
cakes  of  chocolate  and  citron  and  almond  paste 
set  out  in  rows  of  surprisingly  delicate  work- 
manship, and  shallow  cafes  whose  shelves 
were  banked  wkh  cordials  and  rons,  gin, 

[SO] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
whiskies,  and  wine.  There  were  bottles  of 
eccentric  shape  holding  divinely  colored  li- 
queurs, squat  bottles  and  pinched,  files  of  am- 
ber sauternes,  miniature  glass  bears  from  Rus- 
sia filled  with  Kummel,  yellow  and  green 
chartreuse,  syrupy  green  and  white  menthes, 
the  Cinziano  vermouth  of  Italy,  Spanish  cider, 
and  orderly  companies  of  mineral  waters. 

These  stores  had  little  zinc-topped  bars,  and 
there  were  always  groups  of  men  sipping  and 
conversing  in  their  rapid  intent  manner.  The 
street  was  crowded  and,  invariably  allowing 
the  women  the  wall,  it  was  necessary  to  step 
again  and  again  from  the  sidewalk.  They 
were  mostly  Americans:  the  Cuban  women 
abroad  were  in  glittering  automobiles,  al- 
ready elaborate  in  lace  and  jewels  and  dipping 
hats,  and  drenched  in  powder.  They  were, 
occasionally,  when  young,  extremely  beauti- 
ful, with  a  dark  haughtiness  that  I  had  always 
found  irresistible. 

In  my  early  impressionable  years  it  had 
continually  been  my  fate  to  be  entranced  by 
lovely  disagreeable  girls  with  cloudy  black 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
hair  and  skin  stained  with  brown  rather  than 
pink.  Imperious  girls  with  elevated  chins 
and  straight  sensitive  noses!  They  had  never, 
by  any  chance,  paid  the  slightest  attention  to 
me;  and  the  Cubans  passing  by  with  an  air  of 
supreme  disdain  called  back  my  old  interest 
and  my  old  desire.  I  felt,  for  the  moment, 
very  young  again  and  capable  of  romantic 
folly,  of  following  a  particular  beauty  to 
where  her  motor — a  De  Dion  landaulet — dis- 
appeared into  a  courtyard  with  the  closing 
of  the  great  iron-bound  doors. 

A  marked,  not  to  say  sensational,  transfor- 
mation of  my  own  person  had  been  a  conspicu- 
ous part  of  that  young  imaginary  business ;  for, 
though  I  was  fat  and  clumsy,  I  managed  to  see 
myself  tall  and  engaging,  and  dark,  too;  or, 
anyhow,  a  figure  to  beguile  a  charming  girl. 
Something  of  that  hopeless  process  had  taken 
place  in  me  once  more,  now  the  vainer  for  the 
fact  that  even  my  youth  had  gone.  The 
quality  which  called  back  a  past  illusion  was 
very  positive  in  Havana,  and  my  feeling  for 
the  city  was  greatly  enriched,  further  defined. 

[52] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
It  was  charged  with  hazard  for  what  men  like 
me  had  dreamed,  leaving  the  actuality  for  the 
pretended;  the  pretended,  that  so  easily  be- 
came the  false,  was,  in  Havana,  real. 

The  Obispo  under  its  striped  awnings,  with 
its  merchandise  of  coral  and  high  combs 
and  pineapple  cloths;  the  women  magnetic 
with  a  Spain  that  had  slept  with  the  East,  the 
South ;  the  bright  blank  walls,  lemon  yellow, 
blue,  rose;  the  palms  borne  against  the  sky  on 
trunks  like  dulled  pewter;  the  palpable  sense 
of  withdrawn  dark  mystery,  all  created  an 
atmosphere  of  a  too  potent  seductiveness. 
The  street  ended  in  the  Plaza  de  Armas,  with 
the  ultramarine  sea  beyond ;  and  as  I  sat,  fac- 
ing the  arched  low  buff  fagade  of  the  Presi- 
dent's Palace,  my  brain  was  rilled  with  vivid 
fragments  of  emotion. 

What  suddenly  I  realized  about  Havana, 
the  particular  triumph  of  its  miraculous  vital- 
ity, was  that  it  had  never,  like  so  much  of 
Italy,  degenerated  into  a  museum  of  the  past, 
it  was  not  in  any  aspect  mortuary.  Its  relics 
of  the  conquistadores  were  swept  over  by  the 

[53] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
flood  of  to-day.  Yet  I  began  to  be  vaguely 
conscious  of  the  history  of  Cuba,  of  that  Cuba 
from  which  Cortez  had  set  sail,  in  the  winter 
of  fifteen  hundred  and  nineteen,  for  Mexico. 
Later  this  would,  perhaps,  become  clearer  to 
me;  not  pedantically,  but  because  the  spirit 
of  that  early  time  was  still  alive.  I  made  no 
effort  to  direct  my  mind  into  deep  channels. 
What  must  come  must  come;  and  if  it  were  a 
gin  rickey  rather  than  the  slavery  of  the  re- 
partimento  system,  I'd  be  little  enough  dis- 
turbed. 

The  gin  rickey  proved  to  be  an  immediate 
reality,  in  the  patio  of  the  Inglaterra — a 
stream  of  silver  bubbles  shot  into  a  glass  where 
an  emerald  lime  floated  vivaciously.  I  had 
no  intention  of  going  out  again  until  the 
shadows  of  the  late  afternoon  had  lengthened 
far  toward  the  white  front  of  the  Gomez- 
Mena  building  across  the  plaza;  and  after 
lunch  I  went  up  to  the  quiet  of  my  room.  I 
should,  certainly,  write  no  letters,  read — idly 
—none  of  the  few  books  published  about 
Cuba,  which  were  on  my  table;  and  I  be- 

[54] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
gan  the  essays  of  James  Huneker  called  Be- 
douins. His  rhapsodies  over  Mary  Garden, 
as  colorful  in  style  as  the  glass  above  the  win- 
dow, I  soon  dropped  and  picked  indifferently 
among  the  novels  that  remained.  A  poor  lot 
—the  thin  current  stream  of  American  fiction, 
doubly  pale  in  Havana. 

The  day  wheeled  from  south  to  west.  I  was 
perfectly  contented  to  linger  doing  nothing, 
scarcely  thinking,  in  the  subdued  and  dark- 
ened heat.  There  was  a  heavy  passage  of 
trunks  through  the  echoing  hall  without,  the 
melancholy  calling  of  the  evening  papers  rose 
on  the  air;  I  was  enveloped  in  the  isolation  of 
a  strange  tongue.  To  sit  as  still  as  possible, 
as  receptive  as  possible,  to  stroll  aimlessly, 
watch  indiscriminately,  was  the  secret  of  con- 
duct in  my  situation.  Nothing  could  be 
planned  or  provided  for.  The  thing  was  to 
get  enjoyment  from  what  I  did  and  saw;  what 
benefit  I  should  receive,  I  knew  from  long  ex- 
perience, would  be  largely  subconscious.  I 
had  been  in  Havana  scarcely  more  than  a  day, 
and  already  I  'had  collected  a  hundred  impres- 

[55] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
sions  and  measureless  pleasure.     How  wise  I 
had  been  to  come  .  .  .  extravagantly,  with— 
as  it  were — a  flower  in  my  coat,  a  gesture  of 
protest,  of  indifference,  to  all  that  the  world 

now  emphasized. 

*     *     * 

However,  the  tranquillity  of  the  afternoon 
was  sharply  interrupted  by  my  going,  unex- 
pectedly, to  the  races  at  Oriental  Park.  I  had 
to  dress  with  the  utmost  rapidity,  leaving  the 
choice  of  a  tie  to  chance,  for  the  dun  car  of  the 
United  States  Military  Attache  was  waiting 
for  me.  The  Attache,  handsomely  bearing 
the  brown  seal  of  Philippine  campaigns,  ab- 
stracted in  manner,  sat  forward  with  an  imper- 
turbable military  chauffeur,  while  the  back  of 
the  car  was  flooded  by  the  affable  speech  of  a 
Castilian  marquis  whose  variety  of  experience 
in  the  realms  of  expert  and  dangerous  games 
had  been  limited  only  by  their  known  forms. 
It  was  unquestionably  the  mixture  of  my  com- 
monplace Presbyterian  blood  and  incurable 
habit  of  romance  that  gave  me  a  distinct  satis- 
faction in  my  surroundings.  I  was  glad  that 

[56] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
the  Marquis  was  what  he  was  and  that  he  held 
a  trans-continental  motor  record;  it  pleased 
my  honest  democratic  instincts  when  other 
cars  were  held  back  for  our  progress;  and, 
finally,  the  deep  chairs  on  the  veranda  of  the 
Jockey  Club  were  precisely  right  for  a  loung- 
ing afternoon  in  an  expensive  sporting  atmos- 
!phere. 
The  race  track  seemed  to  me  long — was  it 
a  mile? — and,  with  the  horses  at  a  starting  post 
across  from  the  grandstand,  I  couldn't  tell 
one  from  another.  The  grandstand  was  on 
the  right,  and  beyond  the  park  were  low  mo- 
notonous lines  of  stables.  It  had  been  raining, 
the  track  was  heavy,  and  the  race  that  fol- 
lowed the  blowing  of  a  bugle  covered  the  silk 
of  the  jockeys  with  mud.  My  pleasure,  as 
always,  slowly  subsided  at  the  persistent  intru- 
sion of  an  inner  destructive  questioning.  In- 
contestably  the  racing,  the  horses  lining  fret- 
fully and  scrambling  through  the  muddy 
pools,  left  me  cold.  The  sweep  of  the  Jockey 
Club,  too,  was  comparatively  empty  of  inter- 
est; the  spectators  there,  though  they  were 

[57] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
more  or  less  intent  upon  the  results  posted  on 
the  board  opposite,  were  not  the  immemorial 
onlookers  at  such  affairs  of  sweepstakes,  sell- 
ing plates  and  furloughs. 

The  Cuban  women  present,  elaborately 
dressed  for  shaded  lawns  and  salons  de  the, 
were  largely  foreign  to  the  wide-spread  open 
spectacle.  I  remembered  English  races 
where  groups  of  dukes  with  ruddy  features,  in 
rough  tweeds,  sat  through  drizzling  after- 
noons on  their  iron-shod  seat  ricks,  and  women 
of  title,  in  waterproofs  and  harsh  brogues, 
tramped  through  the  sloshing  turf  ...  an  at- 
titude far  removed  from  Havana.  A  group 
of  royal  palms,  lifted  in  the  middle  distance, 
alone  gave  the  races  an  exotic  air;  though 
they  were,  of  course,  promoted  and  ridden  by 
Americans,  and  their  mechanics  were  quite 
those  which  operated  in  New  Orleans  and 
Butte  and  Baltimore.  Now  I  was  annoyed 
because  I  had,  thoughtlessly,  come;  I  might  as 
well  have  gone  to  the  baseball  game  in  what 
had  formerly  been  the  bull  ring. 

Yet  I  could  retire  to  my  speculations  for 

[58] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
escape,  and  I  thought  how  peculiarly  modern 
outdoor  games,  sport,  belong  to  the  British— 
to  them  and  their  relatives  beyond  the  sea.  I 
remembered,  in  this  connection,  the  story  of 
a  French  vicomte  I  knew,  a  man  of  imposing 
build,  who,  in  yellow  gloves,  shot  field  larks 
attracted  by  the  flashing  of  a  mirror  manipu- 
lated by  his  valet.  Le  sport!  But  the  Span- 
iards, bred  to  the  delicate  agility  of  bull  fight- 
ing, trained  in  endurance  on  the  inconceiv- 
ably fast  pelota  courts,  were  more  athletic 
than  the  French ;  though,  as  a  race,  they  were 
inclined  to  delegate  their  games  to  profes- 
sionals. The  sporting  amateur,  in  spite  of 
the  Marquis,  was  a  rarity;  rather  they  chose 
to  be  lookers-on  at  brilliant  diversions  which 
retained  an  appreciable  amount  of  a  mediae- 
val cruelty  diversified  from  our  own  brutal 
strain. 

This,  naturally,  had  been  influenced, 
strengthened,  in  Cuba  by  the  climate,  the 
breath  of  the  tropics;  even  the  winters  were 
not  conducive  to  violent  exercise,  aside  from 
the  fact  that  that  was  the  prerogative  of  stolid 

CS9] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
temperaments.  It  was  the  deliberate,  the  un- 
excitable,  who  most  excelled  at  trials  of  per- 
sonal muscular  skill;  and  neither  of  them 
were  at  home  below  certain  latitudes.  For 
myself,  I  was  grateful,  for  I  hadn't  much  in 
common  with  the  exemplifications  of  field 
skill  I  had  met.  They  were  very  apt  to  pay 
for  their  success  by  the  absence  of  the  attri- 
butes I  particularly  admired;  often  they  were 
snobs  of  a  very  exasperating  type — monuments 
of  college  beef  with  irreproachable  hair,  sacro- 
sanct pins,  and  insensate  conventional  mental- 
ities. 

A  race  at  an  end,  the  jockeys,  carrying  their 
saddles,  trooped  to  the  judges'  stand  to  be 
weighed,  and  I  was  shocked  by  their  wizened, 
preternaturally  cunning  faces.  They  were 
like  pygmies  of  a  strange  breed  in  red  and  yel- 
low and  blue  satins;  faultless  for  their  pur- 
pose, on  the  ground  they  were  extraordinary, 
leather-skinned,  with  puckering  eyes,  drawn 
mouths,  and  distorted  bodies.  They  wrangled 
among  themselves  in  shrill  or  foggy  voices— 
a  very  depressing  specialization  of  humanity. 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
But  the  horses  were  magnificent,  slender  and 
shining.  I  admired  them  from  a  distance, 
glad  that  it  was  no  part  of  my  responsibility 
to  ride.  Long  ago,  under  the  pressure  of  an 
untender  emotion,  I  had  learned  to  sit  on  a 
horse  through  his  reasonable  moments;  but  I 
had  never  become  at  ease,  and  I  stopped  rid- 
ing when,  on  the  country  road  of  a  May  Sun- 
day noon,  a  tall  sorrel  ran  away  with  me  so 
fast  and  so  far  that  we  passed  three  churches 
with  their  scattering  congregations. 

There  were,  on  the  veranda,  drinks,  and 
even  they — the  Scotch  highballs — translated 
into  Spanish,  had  an  unfamiliar  and  borrowed 
sound.  It  was  on  my  return,  stopping  at  the 
Telegrafo  Cafe,  that  I  learned  the  delightful 
possibility  of  a  Daiquiri  cocktail.  It  was 
twice  as  large  as  ordinary,  what  in  the  north 
was  called  a  double;  but  no  Daiquiri  out  of 
Cuba  could  be  thought  of  in  comparison. 
Only  one  other  drink  might  be  considered— 
a  Ramos  gin-fizz.  My  extreme  allegiance  had 
been  given  to  the  latter.  I  was  not  willing, 
even  in  the  Telegrafo,  to  depose  it  from  first 

[61] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
place;  but  the  Telegrafo  was  a  pleasanter  spot 
than  the  New  Orleans  Stag  bar.  I  could  see 
the  beginninng  of  the  Prado,  with  the  swirl 
of  cars  on  their  afternoon  round  to  the  Male- 
con.  Some  arc-lights,  just  turned  on,  were 
sources  of  color,  like  great  symmetrical 
lemons,  rather  than  of  illumination.  After 
another  rain  the  bare  flambeau  trees  would 
burst  into  fiery  bloom. 

I  was  alone,  and,  sauntering  back  to  the  In- 
glaterra,  through  the  gallery  that  had  once 
been  the  Paseo  Isabel,  I  came  on  my  flower 
man,  who  advanced  with  a  smile  and  a  close 
nosegay  of  gardenias.  A  curious  flower,  I 
thought,  getting  water  for  them  in  a  glass. 
They  didn't  wilt,  as  was  usual,  but  turned 
brown  and  faded  in  the  manner  of  a  lovely 
pallid  woman — a  simile  I  had  used  in  Linda 
Condon.  A  flower  that  belonged  less  to  na- 
ture than  to  drawing-rooms,  to  rococo  salons 
and  the  opera  loges  of  eighteen  forty,  and  not 
at  all  to  the  present  in  the  United  States.  But 
worn  low  on  the  neck,  it  was  entirely  appropri- 
ate to  the  black  hair  of  the  Cuban  woman. 

[62] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
Gold  hair,  the  fair  temperament,  had  no  busi- 
ness with  gardenias:  bouquets  of  White  sweet 
peas  looped  with  pale  green  and  silver  ribbon, 
yes;  and  dark  bunches  of  moss  roses;  the  old 
bouquets  of  concentric  rings  of  buds  in  lace 
paper!  They  were  the  property  of  the  girls  I 
had  known,  the  frank  girls  with  clear  grey 
eyes  and  the  appealing  girls  with  eyes  like 
forget-me-nots.  Something  more  poignant,  a 
heavier  disturbing  perfume,  was  necessary 
against  a  figure  seen  only  from  a  balcony  or 
with  a  vague  fleetness  behind  a  grille  grace- 
fully wrought  out  of  iron. 

My  shutters  now  were  opened,  and  I  could 
make  out,  against  the  dimming  sky,  the  lan- 
guid folds  of  the  Spanish  flag  above  the  en- 
trance of  the  Centre  Gallego — the  standard 
that  had  conquered  the  western  tropics,  only, 
in  turn,  to  be  subdued  by  a  freedom  of  the 
wind  mightier  than  His  Most  Catholic  Maj- 
esty. 

*     *     * 

There  was  some  question  of  where  I'd  go 
for  dinner,  for  in  Havana  there  were  many 

[63] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
cafes  to  explore — the  Dos  Hermanos,  the 
Paris,  the  Florida,  the  Hotel  de  Luz,  the  Mi- 
ramar;  but,  finally,  I  walked  down  to  the 
Prado,  to  the  sea  and  the  Miramar,  a  little  be- 
cause of  its  situation,  directly  on  the  Malecon, 
but  principally  for  the  reason  that  it  had  one 
of  the  most  beautiful  names  possible,  a  name 
which  called  up  the  image  of  a  level  tide  so 
smooth  that  it  held  in  shining  replica  the  forts, 
the  ships,  and  the  clouds.  Tables  were  pre- 
pared for  dinner  in  the  restaurant,  while  those 
on  the  terrace  were  without  cloths;  but  there 
I  determined  to  sit,  and  the  waiter  whose  at- 
tention I  captured,  after  a  long  delay,  agreed. 

A  solitary  couple  had  their  heads  together 
by  the  window,  and  they,  with  myself,  were 
the  only  diners.  It  was,  evidently,  not  now 
the  place  to  go  to  at  this  hour.  Beyond  the 
dining-room,  a  patio,  or  rather  an  open  court, 
was  set  for  dancing,  melancholy  as  such  spaces 
can  be,  deserted  and  half-lighted;  but  I  saw 
that  a  considerable  activity  was  expected  much 
later. 

I  was  glad  that  the  terrace  was  empty,  for, 

[64] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
with  the  light  now  faded  from  the  sea  and 
its  blueness  merging  into  black,  the  remote 
tranquillity  of  evening  was  happier  without  a 
sharp  chatter  of  voices.  The  Miramar,  con- 
sidering its  place — the  most  advantageous  in 
all  Havana — and  fame  was  surprisingly  small  : 
scarcely  more  than  two  stories  high,  the  sombre 
maroon  walls  with  their  long  windows  hardly 
rilled  an  angle  of  the  Malecon.  The  dinner 
was  slow  in  arriving,  the  silver  made  its  ap- 
pearance, a  goblet  was  brought  separately,  a 
plate  of  French  bread  was  later  followed  by 
its  butter.  The  minute  native  oysters  were  no 
more  than  shreds  adhering  to  their  shells,  but 
they  had  a  notable  flavor;  a  crawfish  was  at  its 
brightest  apogee;  and  an  omelet  browned  in  a 
delicate  perfection  of  powdered  sugar. 

I  deserted  Spanish  wine,  the  admirable 
Riscal,  for  champagne;  for  there  was  about 
an  air  of  departed  charm,  the  whisper  of  old 
waltzes  and  tarleton,  that  demanded  com- 
memoration. The  Miramar  had  been  the  gay 
center  of  that  mid-century  life  which  had 
folded  Havana  in  the  lasting  influence  of  its 

[65] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
memories.  A  gaiety  not  even  at  a  disadvan- 
tage compared  to  the  feverish  society  of  to- 
day! The  bodices  then  had  been  no  more 
than  scraps  of  chambery  gauze  and  Chinese 
ribbon  below  shoulders  to  the  whiteness  of 
which  the  entire  feminine  age  had  been  de- 
voted. The  flounced  bell  skirts  had  swung 
airily  on  gracious  silk  clappers. 

The  automobiles  on  the  Malecon  multi- 
plied, for  the  night  was  hot;  soon  there  was  a 
solid  double  opposed  procession  on  the  broad 
sweeping  drive.  This  was  a  triumph  of 
American  engineering  and,  I  had  no  doubt, 
an  improvement  on  the  informality  of  rocks 
and  debris  that  had  existed  before.  Yet  I 
should  liked  to  have  seen  it  when  the  prome- 
nade had  not  yet  been  laid  down  with  mechan- 
ical precision,  in,  perhaps,  the  early  seventies. 
Then  there  were  sea  baths  cut  in  the  live  rock 
at  the  end  of  the  Paseo  Isabel,  at  the  Campos 
Eliseos,  where  the  water  was  like  a  cooler 
liquid  green  air,  and  where,  after  storms,  a 
foaming  surf  poured  over  the  barriers.  There 
were  no  motors  then,  but  volantes  and  the  mod- 

[66] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
ern  quintrins,  with  two  horses,  one  outside  the 
shafts,  and  a  riding  calesero  in  vermilion  and 
gold  lace ;  and,  latest  of  all,  as  new  as  possible, 
the  victorias. 

Neither,  then,  was  the  Prado  paved,  but 
the  trees  were  infinitely  finer — five  rows  there 
were  in  fifty-seven — when  the  clamor  of  the 
city  was,  in  great  part,  peals  of  bells.  This 
was  a  familiar  process  with  me,  to  leave  the 
present  for  the  past  in  a  mood  of  irrational 
regret.  But  never  for  the  heroic,  the  real 
past;  the  years  I  chose  to  imagine  lay  hardly 
behind  the  horizon;  in  Italy  it  had  been  the 
Risorgimento,  at  farthest  the  villeggiatura  of 
Antonio  Longo  or  the  viole  d'amore  of  Cima- 
rosa  in  churches.  And  now,  drinking  my 
champagne  on  the  empty  flagged  terrace  of 
the  Miramar,  facing,  across  the  parade  of 
automobiles,  the  blank  curtain  of  the  night, 
starred  on  the  right  by  the  lights  of  castellated 
forts,  my  mind  vibrated  with  grace  notes  no 
longer  heard  outside  the  faint  distilled  sweet- 
ness of  music  boxes. 

As  if  in  derision  of  this,  a  loud  unexpected 

[67] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
music  rose  from  the  bandstand  in  the  Plaza, 
and  I  saw  that  a  flood  of  people,  seated  or 
moving  along  the  pavements  and  through  the 
lanes  of  chairs,  had  gathered.  Nothing,  I 
thought,  could  have  delighted  me  more;  but 
my  anticipation  was  soon  smothered  by  the 
absurdity  of  the  selections :  they  were  not  from 
Balfe  nor  Rossini,  neither  military  nor  the 
accented  rhythm  of  Spain  .  .  .  the  opening 
number  was  Parsifal,  blown  into  the  profound 
night  with  a  convention  of  brassy  emphasis. 

At  the  total  destruction  of  my  pleasure  I 
cursed  the  pretentious  stupidity  of  the  band- 
master and  a  great  deal  else  of  modern  Cuba. 
I  remembered  particularly  some  regrets,  lo- 
cally expressed,  that  the  Spanish  domination 
was  no  more.  Things,  it  was  said,  were  better 
ordered  then.  But  this  was  a  position  the 
vainness  of  which  I  couldn't  join:  it  was  no 
part  of  my  disposition  to  combat,  or  even  re- 
gret, the  inevitable.  My  course — quite  other 
— was  to  project  myself  into  periods  whose 
very  loss  formed  most  of  their  charm.  Gone, 
they  took  on  the  tender  memories  of  the  dead, 

[68] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
and  were  invested  with  the  dignity,  the  beauty, 
of  a  warm  fragility. 

Two  girls  were  now  seated  at  a  table  by  the 
entrance,  and,  though  they  were  alone  for  the 
moment,  it  was  evident  that  they  had  no  inten- 
tion of  remaining  in  that  unprofitable  state 
longer  than  necessary.  Their  fleet  apprais- 
ing glances  rested  on  me  and  the  silver  bucket 
by  my  chair,  and  one  permitted  the  shadow 
of  a  discreet  smile  to  appear  on  her  carmined 
lips.  She  was  pretty,  lightly  dressed  in  a 
flowery  summer  stuff,  but  she  was  as  gold  in 
coloring  as  corn  silk;  an  intrusion  in  Havana 
I  seriously  deplored.  The  other  was  dark, 
but  she  was,  at  the  same  time,  disagreeable; 
something  had  annoyed  her  excessively,  and  I 
made  no  move.  Such  company  was  occasion- 
ally entertaining,  in  a  superficial  conversa- 
tional sense;  but,  I  was  obliged  to  add,  not 
often. 

I  went  over  all  the  informal  girls  I  could 
recall  who  had  been  worth  the  effort  to  culti- 
vate them,  either  charming  or  wise  or  sensitive, 
and  my  bag,  unlike  Chopin's  or  what  George 

[69] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
Moore  reported  his,  was  discouragingly  slim. 
They  had  been,  but  perhaps  of  necessity,  ma- 
terialists, valuers  only  of  the  expensively  con- 
crete; yes,  the  majority  of  such  adventures  had 
been  sordid.  It  was  due,  without  question, 
to  certain  deterrent  qualities  in  my  own  per- 
sonality; but  even  more,  I  was  convinced,  to 
the  fact  that,  in  America,  girls,  or  at  least 
those  of  my  youth,  regarded  emotion  as  por- 
tentously synonymous  with  ruin.  Emotion', 
for  nice  girls,  was  deprecated;  their  sense  of 
modesty,  of  shame,  was  magnified  at  the  ex- 
pense of  everything  else.  This,  together  with 
the  tragic  difference  in  the  age  of  marriage 
in  nature  and  in  society,  had  condemned  the 
United  States  to  very  low  levels  of  feeling. 

Unfortunately  I  had  been  born  into  the  most 
rigid  of  all  societies — a  prosperous  and  Pres- 
byterian middle-class;  an  influence  that  suc- 
ceeded in  making  religion  hideous  before  I 
was  fifteen,  planting  in  me,  too,  the  belief  that 
man  was,  in  his  instinctive  life,  filthy.  I  out- 
grew the  latter,  but  never  the  first;  and  now, 
looking  back,  I  could  recognize  how  that 

[70] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
lauded  creed  had  nearly  damned  me  to  a  hell 
far  surpassing  in  dreadfulness  anything  of  its 
own  bitter  imagining.  The  cold  metaphysi- 
cal fog  had  saturated  us  all  alike.  .  .  .  How 
dreary  my  early  experience  was  .  .  .  what 
detestable  travesties  of  passion!  A  earful  of 
young  men  soon  stopped  at  the  curb  of  the 
Miramar,  and  the  two  girls,  dark  and  gold, 
were  immediately  invested  with  the  politest 
attentions.  There  was  a  chorus  of  laughter 
and  protests  and  suggestions,  in  which  a  privi- 
leged waiter  joined;  and  afterwards  they 
vociferously  left  to  dance  at  Carmelo. 


*     * 


Walking  generally  in  the  direction  of  my 
room,  I  left  the  Prado  for  an  especially  dra- 
matic, no,  melodramatic,  street,  where  the  bare 
walls  and  iron  bolted  doors  were  made  start- 
ling by  the  white  glare  of  electric  lights. 
Fixed  to  the  walls,  infrequently,  were  the 
wrought-iron  brackets  of  the  earlier  lanterns, 
converted,  it  might  be,  for  the  period  before 
the  present,  into  gas  jets.  In  that  watery  il- 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
lumination  such  streets  must  have  seemed  less 
amazing  than  now,  and  entirely  natural  with 
only  the  oil  lanterns  lifting  a  small  surface  of 
masonry  or  an  isolated  angle  out  of  the  night. 
Indeed,  whole  districts  were  dark,  except  for 
a  rare  lamp  privately  maintained  as  an  obli- 
gation of  grace.  That  darkness,  like  the 
streets,  was  mediaeval;  they  belonged  one  to 
the  other — ways  through  which  it  was  con- 
gruous to  carry  a  flare  and  a  sword,  practical 
measures  both. 

These  precautions  had  been  long  discarded, 
but  the  passages  themselves  were  unchanged, 
not  a  stone  had  shifted ;  they  were,  particularly 
at  night,  the  Middle  Ages.  And  it  was  as 
though  a  sudden  blaze  had  been  created  by 
unholy  magic;  a  sparkling  and  infernal  radi- 
ance, throwing  into  intolerable  clearness  the 
decent  reticence  of  the  time.  The  arc  lights 
gave  the  streets  an  absolute  air  of  unreality 
and  tragic  strangeness.  Moving  in  them,  I 
had  the  feeling  of  blundering  awake  into  a 
dream,  of  being  irretrievably  lost  in  an  illu- 
sion of  potential  horror.  An  open  door  with 

[72] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
its  glimpse  into  an  inner  room  only  increased 
the  oppression :  it,  too,  was  brilliant  with  elec- 
tricity, a  room  of  unrelieved  icy  pallor,  except 
for  a  warmer  blur  under  an  Agony  on  the 
Cross,  where  a  small  company  of  men  and 
women  sat  in  a  rigid  blanched  formality  that 
might  have  been  death. 

It  was  quite  natural,  a  commonplace  of 
Havana;  but  rather  than  a  picture  of  familiar 
life,  it  resembled  the  memento  mori  of  a 
grotto.  My  thoughts  turned  to  the  symbols 
and  representations  of  the  Catholic  Church— 
a  business  of  blood  and  torment  and  flame,  of 
Sebastian  torn  with  arrows  and  a  canonized 
girl,  whose  name  I  forgot,  carrying  her  eye- 
balls in  a  hand.  Curiously  enough,  the  spirit 
which  had  given  birth  to  this  suffering  had 
been  popularly  lost,  together  with  any  concep- 
tion of  the  ages  in  which  it  occurred ;  and  all 
that  remained  was  a  pathological  horror. 
Italy  and  Spain  were  saturated  by  it — Italy 
in  the  revolting  wax  spectacles  of  Easter,  and 
Spain  with  the  veritable  crucifixions  of  to-day. 

It  was,  I  supposed,  to  a  certain  extent  un- 

[73] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
avoidable  in  an  establishment  whose  hold  on 
the  ponderable  present  depended  on  threats 
and  promises  laid  in  the  future.  But  it 
seemed  to  me  unfortunate,  to  say  the  least,  that 
a  church  whose  business  was  life  should  be  so 
concerned  with  smoky  death.  Threats  and 
promises!  The  early  history  of  Cuba,  I  re- 
membered, was  inbound  with  the  administra- 
tive and  protective  powers  of  the  Church :  in 
fifteen  hundred  and  sixteen  the  native  Cube- 
nos  were  put  in  the  charge  of  the  Order  of  Jer- 
onimites,  localized  in  La  Espanola — Santo 
Domingo.  The  double  motive  of  the  Spanish 
Christian  kings  in  the  western  hemisphere  had 
been  conversion  and  gold,  but  which  of  these 
was  uppermost  it  was  impossible  to  determine. 
However,  when  the  gold,  the  temporal  in- 
terest, decreased  in  one  locality,  the  spiritual 
concern  of  Seville  shifted  to  the  more  produc- 
tive regions. 

That  was  a  period,  a  conquest,  when  a  vio- 
lent death  was  a  greater  blessing  than  living 
in  a  state  of  damnable  heresy;  and  so,  be- 
tween the  saving  of  their  souls  and  the  loss  of 

[74] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
their  bodies  in  the  king's  mines,  the  natives 
were  thoroughly  cared  for.  It  must  be  said, 
though,  that  de  las  Casas,  a  priest  whose  spirit 
was  above  any  intimidation  or  venality,  de- 
nounced the  outrages  against  the  Cuban  In- 
dians to  the  shining  heavens,  the  cerulean  sea, 
the  Audencia,  and  the  Throne.  But  his  hu- 
manitarianism  was  ineffectual  against  a  sys- 
tem founded  on  the  belief  that  a  god  had  given 
the  earth  and  its  recalcitrant  people  for  the 
profit  and  glory,  the  servants,  of  a  single  re- 
ligious dogma. 

It  was,  possibly,  a  mental  imperfection 
which  gave  impressions,  emotions,  such  a  great 
suggestibility.  Returning  toward  the  Ingla- 
terra,  I  had  no  intention  of  losing  myself  in 
the  mazes  of  applied  theology;  and  I  speedily 
dropped  such  a  sombre  topic  from  my 
thoughts.  Turning  back  to  the  Prado,  I  found 
the  walks  filled  with  men,  progressing  slowly 
or  seated  on  the  flat  marble  benches  along  the 
sides.  Whenever  a  woman  did  pass  on  foot, 
their  interest  and  speculations  were  endless: 
heads  turned  in  rows,  sage  remarks  were  ex- 

[75] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
changed,  and  tentative  simpaticas  murmured. 
Her  mother — if  she  had  the  slightest  preten- 
sions to  youth  or  good  looks — was  fervently 
blessed  for  so  fetching  a  daughter.  Here,  of 
course,  was  the  defect  of  the  local  attitude  to- 
ward women — it  put  the  emphasis  perpetually 
on  a  gallantry  affecting  the  men  more  even 
than  the  women.  There  was  a  constant  dan- 
ger of  becoming  one-sided. 

The  Telegrafo  and  the  Louvre  were 
crowded,  with  more  refrescos  and  ices  on  the 
table  than  authoritative  drinks ;  the  cigarettes 
of  the  discursive  throngs  in  the  Parque  Cen- 
tral were  like  a  sheet  of  fire-flies,  and  the 
Marti  and  Pairet  theatres  were  spreading 
abroad  the  audiences  of  their  second  evening 
shows.  The  patio  of  the  Inglaterra  was  well 
filled,  and  I  stopped  there;  not,  however,  for 
a  naranjada.  Some  late  suppers  were  still 
occupying  the  dining-room,  and  a  drunken 
American  was  gravely  addressing  a  table  and 
meeting  with  a  mechanical  politeness  that  I 
admired  for  its  sustained  patience.  He  left, 
finally,  and  wandered  unsteadily,  a  subject  of 

[76] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
entertainment  for  his  fellows  and  a  mark  of 
contempt  to  the  Cubans  present.  Beyond  me 
were  some  beautifully  dressed  English — two 
men  in  the  final  perfection  of  easy  masculine 
garb  and  a  girl,  flushed  with  beauty,  in  pearls. 
On  the  other  hand  a  young  Frenchman,  dec- 
orated with  the  most  honorable  of  war  rib- 
bons, and  two  women,  all  in  mourning,  were 
conversing  in  the  difficult  Parisian  idiom. 

I  should  have  liked  to  be  at  either  table — 
their  attractions  were  equal ;  but,  forced  to  re- 
main alone,  I  thought  of  how  rude  the  English 
would  have  been  had  I  moved  over  to  them. 
The  English  would  have  been  boorish,  and 
the  French  would  have  met  me  with  an  im- 
penetrable polite  reserve.  Both  would  re- 
gard me  as  an  idiot  or  an  agent ;  to  have  spoken 
to  them  would  have  been  an  affront.  And  yet 
I  was  confident  that  we  should  have  got  on 
very  well :  I  was  not  without  a  name  in  Lon- 
don, and  the  French  were  delightfully  sensi- 
tive to  any  practising  of  the  arts.  The  Eng- 
lish, I  gathered  from  their  unguarded  talk, 
were  cruising  on  a  yacht  now  lying  in  Havana 

[77] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
harbor;  and  I  saw  myself,  the  following  morn- 
ing, going  off  to  them  in  a  smart  tender  and 
sitting  under  the  white  awning  spread  aft, 
with  a  whisky  and  soda,  talking  or  not,  but 
happily  aware  of  the  shining  brass  and  mahog- 
any fittings,  the  immaculate  paint  and  gay 
pennants. 

I  had  always  liked  worldly  pomp  and  set- 
tings, marble  Georgian  houses  with  the  long 
windows  open  directly  on  closed  greens  and 
statues  of  lead;  and  to  linger,  before  going 
down  to  dinner,  on  a  minstrel's  gallery  above  a 
stone  hall  and  gathered  company.  I'd  rather 
be  on  a  yacht  than  on  an  excursion  boat;  yet  I 
infinitely  preferred  reading  about  the  latter. 
For  some  hidden  or  half  perceived  reason, 
yachts  were  not  impressive  in  creative  prose; 
there  the  concerns  and  pleasures  of  aristocracy 
frequently  appeared  tawdry  and  unimportant. 
Even  its  heroism,  in  the  valor  of  battle  and 
imperturbable  sacrifice,  was  less  moving  to 
me  than  simpler  affairs.  Yet  there  was  no 
doubt  but  that  I  was  personally  inclined  to  the 
extremes  of  luxury;  and  this  apparent  con- 

[78] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
tradiction  brought  to  my  life,  my  writing,  the 
problem  of  a  devotion  to  words  as  disarmingly 
simple  as  the  leaves  of  spring — as  simple  and 
as  lovely  in  clear  color — about  the  common  ex- 
perience of  life  and  death,  together  with  an 
absorbing  attention  for  Manchu  women  and 
exotic  children  and  emeralds. 


*     * 


The  following  day,  hot  and  still,  with  the 
exception  of  capricious  movements  of  air  in 
paved  shaded  places,  was  overcast,  the  bril- 
liancy of  Havana,  of  the  white  and  green  pla- 
zas, subdued.  And  this  softening  of  sharp 
lines  and  blazing  fagades  seemed  to  influence, 
too,  the  noises,  the  calls,  of  the  streets,  so  that 
it  was  all  apparently  insubstantial,  like  the 
ultimate  romantic  mirage  of  a  city.  I  wan- 
dered along  Neptuno  Street  to  Belascoin,  and 
then  to  the  Parque  Maceo,  where  I  ignored  the 
massed  bronze  and  granite  of  its  statue  for  the 
slightly  undulating  shimmering  tide.  In  the 
distance  the  sea  was  lost  in  the  sky — a  nebu- 
lous gray  expanse  such  as  might  have  ex- 

[79] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
isted  before  the  beginning  of  comparative  so- 
lidity. I  lost  all  sense  of  time,  the  centuries 
were  jumbled  together  like  mangos  in  a  basket. 
Yes,  they  were  no  greater,  no  more  important 
or  stable,  than  tropical  fruit. 

The  vivid  spectacle  of  Cuba,  for  example, 
contracted  to  a  palm's  breadth,  the  island  be- 
came nothing  more  than  the  glimmer  of  a 
torch  in  illimitable  dusk.  It  had  been  discov- 
ered by  Columbus,  a  presumptuous  term  used 
arrogantly  in  the  sense  of  created;  an  Arca- 
dian shore  Where,  because  food  grew  without 
cultivation,  without  effort,  and  the  gold  was 
soft  for  beating  into  bracelets,  the  natives  lived 
easily  and  ornamentally  and  in  peace.  They 
wore,  rather  than  steel  and  the  harsh  shirts 
of  the  Inquisition,  the  feathers  of  birds  with 
woven  dyed  quills  and  fragrant  grasses. 
They  sang,  they  danced  with  a  notable  grace, 
loved  and  died  in  the  simplicity  of  bohios  of 
palm  board  and  thatch  under  nine  Caciques. 

Then,  in  the  drawing  of  a  breath,  they  were 
all  destroyed,  gone,  killed  by  slavery,  in  the 
name  of  God  on  the  points  of  swords,  by  the 

[80] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
rapacity,  the  corruption,  the  diseases,  of  civili- 
zation. A  Spanish  Cuba  rose — Iberian  and 
yet  singularly  different — a  business  of  Cap- 
tain-General and  Teniente  Rey,  of  alcalde  and 
alcaide,  of  Santiago  de  Cuba  and  San  Cristo- 
bal de  la  Habana.  The  French  under  Jac- 
ques Sores,  and  the  English  under  Drake,  sailed 
over  the  horizon.  In  less  than  a  second,  the 
expiration  of  a  sigh,  Diego  de  Velasquez  and 
Narvaez,  Isabel  de  Bobadilla,  Rojas  and  Guz- 
man, the  merchant  Diego  Perez  in  vain  lay- 
ing the  guns  of  the  Magdalena  in  defense  of 
the  past,  had  gone.  The  Cedula  from  Ma- 
drid, in  eighteen  hundred  and  twenty-five,  be- 
gan the  conspiracies,  Tacon  came  and  went, 
the  fiscals  beat  free  colored  men  to  death  and 
entertained  the  negro  women  naked  at  balls. 
The  Lopez  rebellion  was  followed  by  the  ten 
years'  war  of  eighteen  hundred  and  sixty-eight 
and  the  peace  of  Zanjon,  the  great  rebellion 
and  Weyler. 

There  remained  now  the  indefinite  sea  and 
a  city  withdrawn,  secretive,  made  vaguely 
beautiful  by  intangible  voices,  all  its  voices 

[81] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
that  had  laughed  and  shouted,  whispered  and 
cried;  and  by  the  towers  and  walls  merged  in 
a  single  pattern,  the  old  and  the  new  drawn 
together  by  an  aspect  of  impermanence,  freed 
from  the  deceptive  appearance  of  solidity. 
Suddenly  its  history  had  been  shown  to  me  in 
a  flash  of  emotion,  a  mood  of  feeling.  I 
hadn't  come  to  Cuba  ignorant  of  the  land,  but 
I  had  determined  to  slight  what  was  but  writ- 
ten inanimate  fact.  I  had  no  disposition  for 
instruction :  books  were  powerless  to  create  La 
Punta  for  me,  it  must  bear  its  own  credentials 
...  it  might  become,  to  my  uncertain  ad- 
vantage, as  important  as  a  Daiquiri  cocktail, 
as  a  Larranaga  cigar,  but  hardly  more. 

In  any  other  case  I  should  have  cheated  my- 
self, not  only  of  pleasure,  the  relaxation  possi- 
ble to  honesty  of  mind,  but  of  any  hope  of  fu- 
ture material.  The  creative  habit  was  the 
most  tireless  and  frugal  in  existence:  there  was 
nothing — no  experience,  person,  disillusion- 
ment, or  pain — not  endlessly  sounded  for  its 
every  note  and  meaning.  No  one  could  pre- 

[82] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
diet  what  would  be  indispensable,  just  as  it 
was  impossible  to  foresee,  in  the  projection  of 
a  novel,  where  its  fine  moments  occurred. 
And,  returning  to  the  descriptive  and  histori- 
cal books  on  Cuba,  left  so  largely  unread  at 
the  Inglaterra,  it  was  probable  that  they  had 
omitted,  in  their  effort  for  literal  and  conven- 
tional emphasis,  what  might  in  their  subject  be 
vivifying  to  me. 

This,  however,  was  beyond  spoiling — a  his- 
tory so  picturesque,  as  I  have  intimated,  that 
its  very  vividness,  its  commonest  phases,  had 
become  the  threadbare  material  of  obvious 
romance.  But,  outside  of  all  that,  the  other 
Havana,  the  mid-Victorian  Pompeii,  a  city 
that  none  could  have  predicted  or  told  me  of, 
offered  the  incentive  of  its  particular  and  rare 
charm.  In  the  Parque  Maceo,  on  the  sea 
wall,  my  imagination  stirred  with  the  first 
beginnings  of  a  story:  it  would  take  place  in 
the  period  when  the  avaricious  grip  of  Spain 
was  loosening,  a  story  of  secret  patriotism  and 
the  idealism  of  youth,  set  in  marble  salons,  at 

[83] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
the  opera  and  the  cafes.     It  would  not  concern 
itself  with  any  love  except  the  fidelity  between 
two  men,  a  story  of  friendship. 

There  it  would  be  different  from  The  Ar- 
row of  Gold  and  Dona  Rita;  no  peignoirs, 
thank  you,  but  a  formality,  a  passionate  pro- 
priety, in  keeping  with  the  social  gravity  and 
impersonal  devotion  of  the  very  young. 
There  must  be  crinoline — would  I  never  es- 
cape from  that! — and  candelabra  with  glitter- 
ing prisms;  Spanish  soldiers  in  striped  linen 
and  officials  with  green-tasselled  canes.  My 
youth,  he'd  come  from  the  United  States, 
would  have  his  little  dinners  at  the  Restaurant 
Frangaise,  in  Cuba  Street  number  seventy-two, 
and  his  refrescos  at  the  Cafe  Dominica.  In 
the  end  he'd  leave  Havana,  having  accom- 
plished nothing  but  the  loss  of  his  illusions  for 
the  gain  of  a  memory  like  a  dream,  but  his 
friend,  a  Cuban — I  had  seen  him  that  first 
night  at  dinner  in  the  Inglaterra — would  be 
killed.  How  .  .  . 

It  was  time  to  go  back  to  the  hotel,  and  the 
story  receded.     I  walked  too  far  on  Belascoin 

[84] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
Street,  all  the  way  to  Salud ;  and,  past  the  Ta- 
con  Market,  came  out  on  the  Parque  de  Colon, 
where  now  there  was  a  hot  dusty  wind,  like  a 
localized  sirocco,  and  I  was  glad  to  reach  my 
room.  The  reflection  of  the  colored  glass 
above  the  window  was  hardly  discernible  on 
the  tiles;  the  interior  was  permeated  by  af 
shadow  which  made  the  ceiling  appear  high 
beyond  computation ;  and  my  wardrobe  trunk, 
standing  open,  exhibited  a  rack  of  limp  neck- 
ties. I  turned  again  to  the  novels  on  the  table 
and  again  let  them  drop,  unattended,  from  a 
listless  hand.  Tepid  water!  And  I  won- 
dered— a  constant  subject  with  me — when 
we  should  have  a  new  vigorous  American  lit- 
erature, a  literature  absolutely  native,  by  men 
who  had  not,  like  myself,  been  to  school  to 
Turgenev  and  the  English  lyrical  poetry. 
Henry  James  had  found  the  United  States 
lacking  in  background;  the  lack  was  evident, 
but  not  in  the  country  of  his  birth. 

This  was  not  a  complaint  against  The  Vel- 
vet Glove  except  as  it  equally  applied  to  me; 
but  an  intense  desire  for  a  fresh  talent,  an 

[85] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
ability  to  which  we  could,  without  reserve, 
take  off  our  hats.  The  fact  hit  me  that  I  was 
forty,  although  it  was  still  the  fashion  among 
reviewers  to  speak  of  me  as  a  promising  young 
man,  and  that  there  were  patches  of  grey  hair 
on  my  temples.  Yet  I  had  been,  everything 
considered,  remarkably  successful ;  there  was 
no  need  for  sentimental  regret,  a  trait  of  men- 
tal feebleness. 

I  decided  to  do  something  positive  that 
evening,  to  go  to  the  theatre,  or,  if  it  were 
playing,  to  see  the  Jai  Alai.  The  latter  was 
possible,  and,  by  way  of  the  Telegrafo,  I 
reached  the  Hotel  Florida  for  dinner;  a  res- 
taurant which,  because  of  the  windows  look- 
ing down  on  it,  had  the  pleasant  individual 
air  of  a  courtyard.  The  music  played,  diners 
came  and  went,  and  I  gazed  up  at  the  shallow 
balconies  in  the  hopefulness  of  an  incorrigible 
imagination.  The  Fronton  Jai  Alai — in  Ha- 
vana the  game,  pelota,  had  taken  the  title  of 
its  court — was  a  long  way  from  Obispo  Street, 
but  I  knew  when  we  had  reached  it  by  the 
solid  volume  of  shouting  that  escaped  from 
[86] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
the  high  concrete  building  into  the  dim  neigh- 
borhood. 

*     *     * 

Inside,  the  court  was  an  immense  expanse 
with  granite-laid  walls,  a  long  rectangle,  one 
side  of  which  was  formed  by  the  steeply 
banked  rows  of  spectators.  Regular  spaces 
were  marked  by  white  lines  on  the  playing 
floor,  and  at  one  end  the  score  was  hung 
against  the  names  of  the  players,  now  two 
teams — the  Azules  and  the  Blancos.  The 
boxes  were  above  the  cement  ledges  packed 
with  standing  men,  by  a  promenade,  where  the 
betting  was  conducted,  cigars  sold,  and  a  small 
active  bar  maintained.  It  was  the  night  of 
a  gala  benefit,  for  the  Damas  de  Caridad,  and 
I  had  been  fortunate  in  getting  a  single  box 
seat.  I  was  late,  though,  and  the  game  pro- 
gressing; still,  I  was  the  first  in  our  railed 
space ;  but  the  others,  who  proved  to  be  Amer- 
icans, soon  followed — three  prosperous  men, 
manufacturers  I  thought,  with  wives  in  whom 
native  good  taste  had  been  given  the  oppor- 
tunities of  large  resources. 

[87] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
One  of  the  women — who,  in  the  arrangement 
of  the  box,  sat  beside  me — smiled  with  a  mag- 
netism that  had  easily  survived  the  loss  of  her 
youth;  she  was  rather  silent  than  not,  but  the 
rest  swept  into  a  conversation  in  their  best 
public  manner.  A  man  accompanying  them, 
it  developed,  knew  Cuba  and  Jai  Alai,  and  he 
secured  for  the  amusement  of  the  others  a 
cesta,  the  basket-like  racquet  worn  strapped  to 
the  arm.  It  was  from  him  I  discovered  that 
the  court  was  two  hundred  and  ten  feet  long 
and  thirty-'six  feet  wide;  while  the  service  con- 
sisted in  dropping  the  ball  and,  on  its  rebound, 
catching  it  in  the  cesta  and  throwing  it  against 
the  far  end  wall.  From  there,  with  a  sharp 
smack  audible  all  over  the  Fronton,  the  ball 
shot  back,  if  not  a  fault,  within  a  marked  area, 
and  one  of  the  opposing  side  caught  it,  in  the 
air  or  on  the  first  bounce,  and  returned  it 
against  the  end  wall.  At  first  I  could  see 
nothing  but  the  violent  activity  of  the  players, 
frozen  into  statuesque  attitudes  of  throwing; 
vigorous  figures  in,  mostly,  white,  with  soft 
red  silk  sashes.  I  heard  the  ball  hit,  and  saw 
[88] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
it  rolling  out  of  play;  and  then,  with  some 
slight  realization  of  the  rapidity  of  its  flight, 
I  was  able  to  follow  the  course  from  cesta  to 
wall  and  floor. 

There  had  never  been,  I  was  certain,  an- 
other game  in  which  instantaneous  judgment, 
skill,  and  endurance  had  been  carried  to  such 
a  far  point.  There  was  seldom  a  fault  or  er- 
ror; the  ball,  flying  like  a  bullet,  was  caught 
and  flung  with  a  single  gesture;  again  and 
again  it  carried  from  one  end  wall  to  the 
other,  from  which  it  was  hurled  on.  Angles 
of  flight  were  calculated  and  controlled,  the 
long  side  wall  was  utilized.  .  .  .  Then  a 
player  of  the  Azules  was  hit  in  the  ankle,  and 
the  abruptness  with  which  he  went  down 
showed  me  a  possibility  I  had  ignored. 

During  this  the  clamor  of  the  audience  was 
indescribable,  made  up,  for  the  most  part,  of 
the  difficulties  of  constantly  shifting  odds  and 
betting.  The  odds  changed  practically  with 
every  passage  of  the  ball:  opening  at,  say, 
five  to  three  against  the  favorites,  as  they  drew 
steadily  ahead  in  a  game  of  twenty-five  points 

[89] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
it  jumped  to  eight  to  four,  ten  to  three,  any- 
thing that  could  be  placed.  On  the  floor  a 
small  company  of  bookmakers,  distinguished 
by  their  scarlet  caps,  shouted  in  every  direc- 
tion, and  betting  paper  was  thrown  adroitly 
through  the  air  in  hollow  rubber  balls.  Those 
who  had  backed  at  favorable  odds  the  team 
now  far  ahead  were  yelling  jubilantly,  and 
others  were  trying,  at  the  expense  of  their 
lungs,  to  cover  by  hedging  their  probable 
losses. 

There  was,  'however,  toward  what  should 
'have  been  the  end,  an  unlooked-for  develop- 
ment— the  team  apparently  hopelessly  behind 
crept  up.  An  astounded  pause  followed,  and 
then  an  uproar  rose  that  cast  the  former  sound 
into  insignificance.  Soon  the  score  was  prac- 
tically tied :  there  were  shrill  entreaties,  basso 
curses,  a  storm  of  indiscriminate  insults. 
Now  the  backers  of  the  lesser  couple  scram- 
bled vocally  to  take  advantage  of  the  betting 
opportunities  forever  lost — the  odds  were 
even,  then  depressed  on  the  other  side.  When 
the  game  was  over  the  noise  died  instantly: 

[90] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
men  black  with  passion,  shaking  with  rage, 
crushing  their  hats  or  with  lifted  clenched 
fists,  at  once  conversed  with  smiling  affability. 
My  eyes  had  been  badly  strained,  and  I  was 
glad  to  leave  the  box  and  stroll  along  the 
promenade.  The  betting  counters  were 
jammed  by  the  owners  of  winning  tickets,  the 
men  behind  the  bar  were,  in  their  own  way, 
as  active  as  the  pelota  players. 

The  majority  of  the  boxes  were  occupied 
by  Cuban  families,  but  yet  there  was  an  ap- 
preciable number  of  foreigners.  A  slender 
girl,  in  a  low  dinner  dress,  was  sitting  on  the 
railing  of  her  box,  swinging  a  graceful  slipper 
and  smoking  a  cigarette — New  York  was  in- 
delibly stamped  on  her — and,  among  the  mas- 
culine world  of  Spanish  antecedents,  she  cre- 
ated a  frank  center  of  interest.  For  her  part, 
she  studied  the  crowd  quite  blocking  the  way 
below  her  with  a  cold  indifference,  the  per- 
sonification of  young  assured  arrogance. 

A  quiniela  followed,  with  six  contestants, 
one  against  the  other  in  successive  pairs;  but 
my  eyes  were  now  definitely  exhausted  by  the 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
necessarily  shifting  gaze,  and  my  interest  fast- 
ened on  the  woman  beside  me.  She  was  at 
once  intimately  attached  to  the  people  with  her 
and  abstracted  in  bearing:  a  woman  not  far 
from  fifty,  but  graceful  still  and,  in  a  flexible 
black  silk  crepe  with  a  broad  girdle  of  jet,  still 
desirable.  It  seemed  to  me  that,  in  spite  of  an 
admirable  manner,  she  was  a  little  impatient 
at  the  volubility  around  her;  or  it  might  be, 
in  contradiction  to  this,  she  was  exercising  a 
patience  based  on  fortitude.  It  was  clear  that 
she  hadn't  a  great  deal  in  common  with  the 
man  who  had  evidently  been  married  to  her 
for  a  considerable  length  of  years.  They 
spoke  little — it  was  he  who  had  fetched  the 
cesta — both  immersed  in  individual  thoughts. 
A  woman,  I  decided,  finely  sensitive,  superior; 
who,  as  she  had  grown  older,  had  found  no 
demand  for  the  qualities  which  she  knew  to 
be  her  best. 

A  painful  situation,  a  shocking  waste, 
from  which,  for  her,  there  was  no  escape,  for 
she  had  patently  what  was  known  as  character. 
She  at  once  was  conscious  of  the  absolute  need 

[92] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
for  spiritual  freedom  and  bound  by  commit- 
ments paramount  to  her  self-esteem.  But 
even  if  she  had  been  more  daring,  less  consci- 
entious, what  could  she  have  gained;  what 
was  there  for  her  in  a  society  condemned  to 
express  the  spirit  in  the  terms  of  flesh?  She 
had  too  much  charm,  too  great  a  vitality,  to  be 
absorbed  in  the  superficial  affairs  of  women, 
the  substitute  life  of  charity.  And  once  mar- 
ried, probably  to  a  man  the  model  of  kindly 
faith,  she  was  caught  in  a  desert  of  sterile 
monotony.  Even  children,  I  could  see,  if 
they  existed,  had  not  slain  her  questioning  at- 
tractive personality. 

She  smiled  at  me  again,  later,  her  narrow 
slightly  wasting  hands  clasped  about  a  knee— 
a  smile  of  sympathetic  comprehension  and  un- 
quenchable woman.  She  would  have  been 
happier  chattering  in  the  obvious  strain  of 
stupidity  behind  her:  any  special  beauty  was 
always  paid  for  in  the  imposed  loneliness  of  a 
spoken  or  unspoken  surrounding  resentment. 
To  be  content  with  a  facile  compliment,  the 
majority  of  tricks  at  auction  bridge,  mechani- 

[93] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
cal  pleasures,  was  the  measure  of  wisdom  for 
women  in  her  situation.  The  last  quiniela 
over,  plainly  weary  she  gathered  a  cloak  about 
her  shoulders  and  left  the  box,  without,  as  I 
had  hoped,  some  last  gesture  or  even  a  word : 
and  I  pictured  her  sitting  listlessly,  distraught, 
in  the  cafe  to  which  they  were  proceeding. 


The  pelota  immediately  vanished  from  my 
mind  before  the  infinitely  more  fundamental 
and  interesting  problem  of  marriage;  and — 
remembering  the  ominous  sign  of  a  woman's 
club  on  the  Malecon — I  wondered  if  the  Cu- 
ban women  were  contented  with  the  tradition 
as  it  had  been  handed  down  to  them.  In  the 
life  that  I  knew  in  the  north,  an  infinitesimal 
grain  of  sand  irritating  in  the  body  of  the 
United  States,  the  sacredness  of  matrimony 
had  waned  very  seriously;  it  would,  of  course, 
go  on,  probably  for  ever,  since  no  other  ar- 
rangement could  be  thought  of  conciliating 
the  necessities  of  both  dreams  and  property; 
but,  subjected  to  the  scrutiny  of  intelligence 

[94] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
rather  than  sentimentality,  it  seemed  both  im- 
potent and  foolish.  The  impotence  certainly, 
for  whereas  my  grandfather  had  thirteen  chil- 
dren and  my  mother  four — or  was  it  five? — 
I  had  none.  There  had  always  been  individ- 
uals unrestrained  by  the  complicated  oaths  of 
the  wedding  service — a  strictly  legal  proceed- 
ing to  which  the  church  had  been  permitted  to 
add  its  furbelows — dissatisfied  ladies,  and  gen- 
tlemen of  the  commercial  road.  I  wasn't  re- 
ferring to  them,  but  to  the  look,  at  once  puz- 
zled, humorous,  and  impatient,  that  lately  I 
had  seen  wives  of  probity  turn  on  their  hus- 
bands. 

They  expressed  the  conviction  that  the 
purely  masculine  aphorism  to  the  effect  that 
home  was  the  place  for  women  meant  nothing 
more  than  a  clearing  of  the  decks  for  un- 
restricted action.  This  was  beautifully  dis- 
played, confirmed,  in  Havana,  where  decks 
were  without  a  single  impediment;  and  I  spec- 
ulated about  the  attitude  of  the  Cuban  women 
in  houses  barred  with  both  actual  and  meta- 
phorical iron.  Tradition  weighed  heavily  on 

[95] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
their  outlook;  but  there  was  that  club  on  the 
Malecon.  Tradition  had  bound  the  farm 
wives  of  Pennsylvania,  yet  they  were  progres- 
sively rebelling  against  the  insanity  of  endless 
labor  and  isolation.  But,  perversely,  the  mar- 
ried groups  I  saw  in  Havana  were  remarkably 
close,  simple,  and  happy.  They  sat  in  rows 
at  the  concerts  on  the  plazas,  went  off  on  small 
excursions,  in  entire  harmony — a  thing  impos- 
sible to  the  born  American,  with  whom  such 
parties  began  in  exasperation  and  ended  in 
nervous  exhaustion.  An  American  husband, 
of  the  class  largely  evident  in  Havana,  es- 
corted his  family  abroad  with  truculence  and 
an  air  of  shame  at  being  exposed  in  such  a 
ridiculous  situation.  If  there  was  more  than 
one  household  implicated,  the  men  invariably 
drew  away  together:  there  was  a  predomi- 
nance of  cursing  and  the  wails  of  irritably 
smacked  children.  The  truth  was  that  the  cit- 
izens of  the  United  States,  in  their  feverish 
passage  through  life,  had  decidedly  a  poor 
time — either  restlessness  or  ambition  or  dis- 
satisfaction destroyed  their  peace  of  mind. 

[96] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
Labor,  more  highly  paid  than  at  any  other 
place   or   time,    got   less   satisfaction    for   its 
money  than  a  Cuban  mestizo  with  a  peseta. 

My  thoughts  returned  abruptly  to  the  point 
where  they  had  started,  to  marriage,  and  I 
hoped  that  Cuba  wouldn't  be  disorganized  by 
the  present  ferment;  that  the  feminine  element, 
discovering  their  wrongs,  wouldn't  leave  their 
balconies  and  patios  for  the  dusty  publicity  of 
the  street.  Already  a  decline  had  been  suf- 
fered, first  in  the  loss  of  mantillas  and  combs, 
next  in  the  passing  of  single-horse  victorias  for 
unrestrained  tin  locomotives,  and  then  in  the 
hideous  flood  of  electric  lighting.  Still,  a 
great  deal  of  the  charm,  the  empire,  of  Ha- 
vana women  remained;  while  nothing  but  ut- 
ter disaster  approached  them  from  the  north. 

This  was  no  new  position  for  me,  and  it  had 
never  failed  to  be  attacked,  usually  with  the 
insinuation  that,  spiritually,  I  was  part  of 
Turkey  in  Asia  ...  a  place  of  gardens  where 
it  was  not  inconceivable  that  I'd  be  happy: 
certainly  the  politics  there  were  no  worse  than 
those  to  which  I  had  been  inured  from  birth, 

[97] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
with  murder  on  the  streets  at  noon  distin- 
guished by  a  white  ribbon  in  its  buttonhole. 
The  Armenians  were  no  more  precariously  sit- 
uated than  the  Albigenses  under  Innocent  III. 
I  had  heard,  as  well,  that  the  governments  of 
Cuba  had  not  been  free  from  suspicion,  but  it 
was  hoped  that  elections  supervised  from  the 
United  States  would  institute  reform.  Rare 
irony!  Elections,  I  should  have  said,  going 
back  once  more  to  the  beginning,  opening  to 
emancipated  women. 

Gathering,  in  imagination,  all  the  feminine 
world  of  Havana  into  a  fragrant  assembly,  I 
begged  them  not  to  separate  themselves  from 
their  privileges;  I  implored  them  even— 
against  my  personal  inclination,  for  there,  at 
least,  I  was  no  Turk — not  to  grow  slender,  if 
that  meant  agile  excursions  into  loud  spheres 
of  lesser  influence.  Those  others,  I  pro- 
ceeded, would,  rapturously  exchange  a  ballot 
for  a  seductive  ankle,  a  graceful  breast,  or  a 
flawless  complexion.  Complexion,  or  rather 
its  absence,  brought  immeasurably  more  sup- 
porting votes  to  the  women's  party  than  con- 

[98] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
victions.  And  I  added,  reprehensibly,  some 
of  the  things  I  had  been  privately  told,  as  a 
writer,  by  women  newly  in  the  professions: 
I  exposed  the  secret  of  a  lecturer  on  civic  im- 
provement— or  it  might  have  been  better  ba- 
bies; I  couldn't  recall  which — who  carried  a 
handbagful  of  apostrophies  to  Paolo  and 
Francesca,  and  that  illogical  lot,  on  her  trav- 
els. She  permitted  me  to  read  them  in  a 
sunny  orchard  where  the  apples  were  already, 
more  than  ripe,  on  the  ground;  and  her  gaze 
had  persistently  strayed  to  the  wasting  fruit. 

The  audience  melted  away — I  was  unable  to 
discover  if  they  were  flattered  or  annoyed— 
and  I  found  myself  actually  seated  at  one  of 
the  small  tables  on  the  fringe  of  the  the  dansant 
at  the  Sevilla.  The  Cascade  Orchestra  from 
the  Biltmore,  their  necks  hung  with  the  imi- 
tation wreaths  of  Hawaii,  were  playing  a  mu- 
sical pastiche  of  many  lands  and  a  single  pur- 
pose; and  there,  foxtrotting  intently  among 
girls  from  the  New  York  Follies  and  girls  on 
follies  of  their  own,  colliding  with  race  track 
touts  from  Jefferson  Park  and  suave  predatory 

[99] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
gentlemen  of  San  Francisco,  I  found  a  whole 
section  of  young  Cuba. 

They  returned,  in  the  intermissions,  to  chap- 
erons complacent  or  secretly  disturbed,  where 
they  had,  principally,  refrescos;  but  their  atti- 
tude was  one  of  progress  and  conscious,  pat- 
ronizing superiority  to  old-fashioned  customs. 
The  daughters  of  what,  in  many  aspects,  was 
the  Spanish-Cuban  aristocracy  of  the  island, 
were  dancing  publicly  in  a  hotel.  Here,  al- 
ready, was  an  example  of  emancipation.  I 
disliked  it,  naturally,  not  on  moral  grounds, 
but  because  it  foreshadowed  the  destruction 
of  individuality,  the  loss,  eventually,  of  Ha- 
vana, of  Cuba,  of  Spain  ...  of  everything 
distinguished  that  saved  the  world  from  mo- 
notony. 

They  danced — the  Cuban  youth — with  no- 
table facility,  adding  to  the  hesitation  waltz 
something  specially  their  own,  a  more  intense 
rhythm,  a  greater  potentiality;  their  bodies 
were  at  once  more  fluid  and  positive;  they 
were  swept  up  into  a  mood  unknown  to  the 
adamant  ornaments  of  Country  Club  veran- 
[100] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
das  in  the  north.  A  cosmopolitan  waiter, 
anxious  to  have  me  finish  and  move  on,  hov- 
ered about  the  table,  ignorant  of  a  traditional 
courtesy  as  well  as  of  the  requirements  of  the 
climate.  All  the  objectionable  features  of 
Broadway  cafes,  of  public  ostentation,  min- 
gled servility  and  insolence,  dishonesty — my 
pina  colado  was  diluted  beyond  taste — were 
being  flung,  with  the  air  of  a  favor,  into  Ha- 
vana. Although,  for  the  best,  I  was  even  then 
a  little  late,  I  was  glad  that  I  had  seen  the  city 
when  I  did,  just  as  I  was  glad  to  have  known 
Venice  before  the  Campanile  fell,  and  the 
Virginia  Highlands  when  they  had  not  been 
modernized.  The  change  of  Havana  within 
itself,  from  palm  thatch  to  marble,  was  en- 
trancing; but  the  arbitrary  imposition  of  stu- 
pid habits,  standards,  conduct,  from  outside, 
damnable. 

In  the  end  the  waiter  was  more  forceful 
than  my  determination  to  remain  until  my 
drink  and  thoughts  were  at  an  end,  and  I  rose 
with  them  uncompleted,  in  a  very  ill  temper. 
If  Cuba  hadn't  enough  innate  taste  and  nation- 
[101] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
ality  to  save  herself,  she  must  go  the  popular 
way  to  obliteration.  So  much  else  had  gone! 
But  later,  at  the  Hotel  de  Luz,  untouched  yet 
by  the  hand  of  imported  cupidity,  my  happi- 
ness in  Havana  returned. 


The  Hotel  de  Luz,  inimitably  Cuban,  with 
the  shipping  lying  vaguely  behind  an  orderly 
foliage  at  the  Muelle  outside,  had  a  dining- 
room  partly  divided  by  wooden  screens  that 
merged  informally  into  the  surrounding  halls 
and  spaces,  and  an  air  that  was  an  accumula- 
tion of  tradition,  like  an  invisible  film  lying 
over  everything.  A  multiplication  of  unex- 
pected adventitious  detail  accomplished,  in  its 
entity,  the  strangeness,  at  once  enticing  and 
a  little  sinister,  characteristic  of  Havana. 
There  was,  lurking  about,  in  the  darker  cor- 
ners and  passages,  a  feeling  almost  of  dread, 
uncomfortable  to  meet.  And,  exploring,  I 
passed  a  room  without  windows,  largely  the 
color  of  dried  blood,  the  quintessence  of  a 
nightmare.  The  third  floor,  laid  in  a  tri- 
[102] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
angle  of,  perhaps,  ninety  degrees,  raised  im- 
mense corridors  paved  in  black  and  white  mar- 
ble blocks,  down  the  long  perspective  of  which 
moving  figures  were  reduced  to  furtive  man- 
nikins  and  voices  were  lost  in  an  upper  mur- 
mur. 

I  sat,  for  a  while,  in  a  walnut  rocking  chair 
at  an  end  of  the  sweep,  which  amazed  me  by 
an  architecture  the  impressiveness  of  which 
approached  oppression.  A  wall  was  broken  by 
a  file  of  slatted  doors,  and  from  one,  of  these 
came  the  minute  irritable  clatter  of  a  type- 
writer; the  bell  at  the  finish  of  a  line  sounded 
like  the  shiver  of  a  tapped  glass,  and  a  child 
spoke.  It  was  difficult  to  think  of  the  Hotel 
de  Luz  as  a  place  of  normal  residence,  as 
existing  at  all  except  in  the  mental  fantasias 
of  Piranesi — it  resembled  exactly  one  of  his 
sere  vertiginous  engravings.  Yet  it  was,  I 
knew,  the  favorite  hotel  of  travelers  from  the 
Canary  Islands. 

Continuing  to  rock  slightly  and  smoke,  I 
pursued  the  extremely  recondite  subject  of 
just  such  impressions  as  I  had  there  received: 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
a  very  important  inquiry,  for  it  had  to  do  with 
the  secret,  the  unintelligible  heart,  of  my  writ- 
ing. There  was,  obviously,  in  the  Hotel  de 
Luz  nothing  intrinsically  terrifying,  strange. 
My  attitude  toward  it  would  be  dismissed  as 
absurd  by  the  Canary  Islanders.  But  the  ef- 
fect it  produced  on  me  was  tangible,  ponder- 
able; it  tyrannized  over  my  imagination  and 
drove  it  into  corridors  of  thought  as  sombre  as 
that  in  reality  before  me.  I  had  seen  the  Pir- 
anesi  engravings  when  I  was  very  young  and 
painfully  susceptible  to  mental  darkness  and 
fears;  and  they  .had  undoubtedly  left  their  in- 
delible mark  .  .  .  now  brought  out  by  the 
black  and  white  marble  squares  diminishing 
with  the  walls  in  parallel  lines. 

The  reality  of  what  I  felt,  then,  lay  in  the 
combining  of  the  surroundings  and  my  imagi- 
nation— a  condition,  a  result,  if  not  unique,  at 
least  unlikely  to  be  often  repeated.  The  sum 
of  another  emotional  experience  and  the  Hotel 
de  Luz  would  be  totally  different,  but  equally 
true  with  my  own;  and  from  that  confusion 
misunderstanding  arose.  The  actuality  was 
[104] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
neither  concrete  nor  subjective;  yet,  woven  of 
these  double  threads,  it  was  absolute.  The  in- 
dividuality of  places  and  hours  absorbed  me; 
there  was  no  word  in  English  to  express  my 
meaning — the  perception  of  the  inanimate 
moods  of  place.  It  belonged,  rather  than  to 
the  novel,  to  the  painter,  and  possibly  occu- 
pied too  great  a  space  in  my  pages.  Certainly 
houses  and  night  and  hills  were  often  more 
vivid  to  me  than  the  people  in  or  out  of  them. 
But  it  was  no  longer  possible,  if  it  had  ever 
been,  to  disentangle  one  from  the  other,  the 
personal  from  what  seemed  the  impersonal ; 
for,  while  nature  was  carelessly  free  from 
beauty  and  sentiment  and  morals,  it  had  been 
invested  with  each  of  these  qualities  in  turn  by 
a  differently  developing  intelligence.  The 
elements  of  nature,  partly  in  hand,  were  ar- 
bitrarily and  subconsciously  projected  in  set 
forms.  I  stopped  to  think  how  the  mobility 
of  mind  perpetually  solidified,  like  cement, 
about  itself;  how  fluid  ideas,  aspirations,  al- 
ways hardened  into  institutions,  then  prisons, 
then  mortuary  vaults.  Religion  had  done  this 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
signally,  both  profoundly  and  superficially — • 
it  was  impossible  to  picture  the  faith  of  John 
Fox  under  the  frescoes  of  La  Merced  Church, 
a  Methodist  exuberance  in  St.  Michael's  at 
Richmond;  the  Roman  ritual  was  as  much  a 
thing  of  its  silver  altars  as  the  Episcopal 
Church  in  Virginia  depended  on  historic  com- 
munion services  and  austere  box  pews. 

Not  only  was  I  specially  intent  on  these 
values:  my  inability  to  see  men  as  free  from 
them,  as  spiritual  conquistadores,  had  been  a 
cause  of  difficulty  in  the  popularity  and  sale 
of  my  books.  I  lacked  both  the  conceptions 
of  man  as  an  Atlas,  holding  up  the  painted 
globe,  or  an  individual  mounting  securely  into 
perpetuity.  If  the  latter  were  true,  if  there 
were  no  death,  the  dignity  of  all  the  great 
tragic  moments  of  life  and  art,  the  splendor  of 
sacrifice,  was  cheapened  to  nothing.  I  would 
have  gladly  surrendered  these  for  the  privi- 
lege of  continued  existence — in  a  sphere  not 
dominated  by  hymnology — but,  skeptical  of 
the  future,  all  I  possessed,  my  sole  ideal,  was  a 
passionate  admiration  for  the  courage  of  a  hu- 
[106] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
manity  condemned  to  the  loss  of  warm  life. 

I  had  grown  more  serious  than  I  intended, 
than,  in  Havana,  was  necessary;  what  I  had 
set  out  to  discover  was  simply  the  explanation 
of  my  feeling  about  the  Hotel  de  Luz;  but 
undoubtedly  it  was  better  for  me  to  accept 
emotions,  merely  to  record  them,  than  attempt 
analysis. 

I  had  had  very  little  schooling  in  proc- 
esses of  exact  thought,  practically  no  men- 
tal gymnastics.  But  this  was  not  an  imposed 
hardship  on  which  I  looked  back  with  regret 
—I  had  been  free  to  fill  my  life  with  scholas- 
tic routine,  but  balked  absolutely:  in  class 
rooms  a  blankness  like  a  fog  had  settled  over 
me,  from  which,  after  a  short  half-hearted 
struggle,  I  emerged  to  follow  what,  name- 
lessly,  interested  me.  That,  for  example,  was 
precisely  the  manner  of  my  stay  in  Havana. 
A  course  for  which  the  worst  was  predicted, 
specially  since  I  persisted  in  writing.  And  I 
could  see  how  I'd  be  censured  by  the  frugal- 
minded  for  such  a  book  as  I  was  more  than 
likely  to  bring  to  San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana. 

[107] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
There  was,  in  reality,  no  practical  reason 
to  write  about  it  at  all,  since  it  had  been  ad- 
mirably and  thoroughly  described,  the  sights, 
pleasures,  and  sounds,  in  reputable  and  lauda- 
tory paragraphs,  a  source  of  pride  to  the  na- 
tives. Here  no  one  could  predict,  in  my 
search,  What  would  seem  important,  to  be  tran- 
scribed— the  colored  glass  above  a  window, 
the  sugar  at  the  bottom  of  a  cocktail — and  my 
moral  sense,  of  course,  would  be  as  impotent 
as  my  political  position  was  negligible.  Yet 
the  qualities  ignored  by  a  more  solemn  intel- 
ligence than  mine  were  precisely  what  formed 
the  spirit  of  Havana;  their  comprehension 
was  necessary  to  that  perception  of  an  inani- 
mate mood  of  place. 

I  was  constantly  in  a  disagreement  with  the 
accepted  opinion  of  what  were,  at  bottom,  the 
more  serious  facts,  the  determining  pressures 
of  existence;  and  it  had  always  been  at  the 
back  of  my  head  to  write  a  novel  built  from 
just  such  trivialities  as,  it  seemed  to  me,  enor- 
mously affected  human  fate.  A  very  absorb- 
ing idea  that  had  gone  as  far  as  an  introduc- 
[108] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
tion  called  A  Preface  of  Imperishable  Trifles; 
but  the  realization  that  I  had  begun  in  that 
manner — a  suspicious  circumstance  in  a  novel, 
• — where  no  shadow  of  an  explanation,  a  justifi- 
cation, was  permissible,  led  me  to  put  it  away. 
It  was  the  serious  defect  of  the  novel  that  it 
commonly  resembled  the  mechanism  of  an  in- 
genious lock  in  which  the  key  turned  smoothly 
for  the  flinging  open,  at  the  appropriate  mo- 
ment, of  a  door  upon  a  tableau  of  justice.  It 
lacked  almost  entirely  the  fatalities  of  sheer 
chance,  of  inconsiderable  accidents,  which 
gave  life  its  characteristic  insecurity. 

I  had  left  the  Hotel  de  Luz  for  echoing 
stone  galleries  and  streets  and  empty  paved 
plazas  when  I  told  myself  that  mine  would 
have  simply  been  a  story  of  shifted  em- 
phasis, for  which  I  should  have  used  my 
own  memories,  since  I  recalled  the  wall- 
paper of  a  music  room  after  thirty  years 
more  clearly  than  the  details  of  my  father's 
death,  happening  when  I  was  practically 
mature.  The  unavoidable  conclusion  of  this 
was  that  the  paper,  in  a  way  I  made  no  pre- 
[109] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
tence  to  explain,  bore  upon  me  more  deeply 
than  my  father;  and,  with  that  in  view,  it  was 
perhaps  as  well  that  the  story  had  remained 
unwritten. 

Some  of  these  considerations  returned  to  my 
mind  the  following  afternoon,  when  my  fancy 
had  been  captured  by  a  woman  on  a  balcony 
of  the  Malecon.  The  house  was  small, 
crushed  between  two  imposing  structures  that 
had  been  residences  but  were  now  apartments, 
scarcely  two  stories  and  set  back  of  the  line, 
with  the  balcony  at  a  lower  window.  The 
woman  was  neither  young  nor  lovely,  but, 
folded  in  a  shawl,  it  might  have  been  one  of 
the  lost  mantillas,  she  was  invested  with  a 
melancholy  dignity.  It  was  possible,  in  the 
briefest  passage,  to  see  not  only  her  'history 
but  the  story  of  a  decade,  of  a  vanished  great- 
ness lingering  through  a  last  afternoon  before 
extinction — a  gesture  of  Spain  finally  sub- 
merged in  the  western  seas  of  skepticism. 

I  was  extraordinarily  grateful  to  her  for 
standing  wrapped  with  the  shawl  in  immobile 
[no] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
sadness.  That  was  all  I  wanted  from  her,  the 
most  indeed,  she  could  give:  apart  from  the 
balcony,  hurrying  along  the  street  with  the 
black  lace  drawn  closely  about  her  head,  she 
would  have  been  meaningless.  The  hour  in 
which  I  saw  her,  too,  the  swiftly  fading  radi- 
ance, had  its  inevitable  part  in  the  effect  she 
produced.  I  had,  I  realized,  no  wish  to  re- 
store her  to  either  youth  or  happiness,  I  didn't 
want  to  improve  her,  or  the  case  of  Spain,  in 
any  way;  she  was  perfect  for  my  purpose,  so 
eminently  selfish,  as  she  was.  In  begging,  in 
imagination,  the  women  of  Havana  to  remain 
on  their  balconies,  I  hadn't  given  a  thought  to 
their  welfare  or  desires. 

The  truth  was  that  I  regarded  them  as  a 
part  of  their  iron  grilling,  figures  on  a  canvas, 
the  balconies  and  women  inseparable  from 
each  other.  It  might  well  be  that  this  was  no 
more  than  the  intolerable  oppression  of  the 
past  incongruously  thrust  upon  the  present,  and 
that  at  any  minute  the  women,  in  righteous  in- 
dignation and  revolt,  would  step  down  into 
life.  But  if  they  were  to  do  that,  I  hoped  it 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
would  be  put  off  until  I  had  returned  to  the 
land  of  the  feminine  free;  I  didn't  want  to  be 
present  when  the  balconies  were  definitely  de- 
serted for  the  publicity  of  the  Sevilla.  I 
should  regret  their  loss  heavily,  those  points  of 
vantage  gracefully  ranged  across  the  brilliant 
facades  of  Havana.  For  there  was  no  other 
city  where  balconies  were  so  universal,  so 
varied,  and  so  seductive.  I  recalled  a  bal- 
cony high  over  the  Rond  Point  de  Plain-pal- 
ais,  in  Geneva,  where,  on  the  left,  could  be 
seen  the  blue  line  of  the  Jura  and  on  the  right, 
through  the  mounting  Rue  de  Carouge,  the 
abrupt  green  cliff  of  the  Salve.  Curiously, 
there  were  a  great  many  balconies  in  Geneva 
giving  on  many  beautiful  prospects — the 
Promenade  des  Bastions  and  La  Treille,  the 
Cite  and  bridged  water;  but  they  were  no 
more  than  pleasant,  they  had  no  deep  signifi- 
cance whatever.  The  balconies  of  Charleston 
were  rather  galleries  turned  privately  on  gar- 
dens and  not  upon  the  streets ;  while  those  over 
the  banquettes  of  New  Orleans,  of  the  vieux 

[112] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
carre,  had  long  ago  been  emptied  of  their 
flowered  muslins. 

The  popularity  of  balconies,  their  purpose, 
had  remained,  until  now  at  least,  largely  un- 
changed in  Havana.  On  Sol  Street,  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Oficios  and  where  it  met  the 
harbor,  they  solidly  terminated  their  tall  win- 
dows, reached  the  heights  of  discreet  tradition. 
There  the  way  was  so  narrow  that  a  head 
above  must  be  bent  forward  to  see  what  was 
passing,  affording  a  clear  view  of  high  comb 
and  bright  lips,  provocative  in  the  intimacy  of 
their  suggestion.  The  balconies  of  the  Male- 
con  looked  out,  conversely,  across  the  un- 
broken tide  of  the  sea — in  the  afternoon,  when 
it  was  fair,  a  magical  sweep  of  unutterable 
blue.  Yet  they  had  suffered  a  decline — as 
though  the  constant  noise  of  automobiles  had 
rent  an  evanescent  spirit. 

The  women  there  might  see,  as  they  chose, 
either  the  parade  of  fashion  or  the  grey  walls 
and  the  far  horizon;  but  from  the  balconies  of 
the  Prado  only  the  former  was  visible,  the 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
whirling  motor  cars  and  the  pedestrians  in  the 
rows  of  India  laurels.  Here  the  balconies 
through  the  early  and  late  evening  were 
crowded;  the  chatter,  the  gesticulations  and 
smiles,  evident  on  the  street.  The  clothes, 
however,  were  no  longer  Spanish  in  charac- 
teristic detail,  but  Parisian;  while  the  essential 
atmosphere,  the  color,  of  the  balconies  re- 
mained. In  carnival — I  had  just  missed  it— 
they  were  hung  with  serpentine  and  ex- 
changed bombardments  of  roses  and  compli- 
ments with  the  street;  but  now  their  fastness, 
except  to  the  flutter  of  a  hand,  was  absolute. 
I  saw  a  group  of  girls  at  an  impressive  win- 
dow of  the  Prado,  on  the  corner  of  either 
Trocadero  or  Colon  Street,  all  in  white  ex- 
cept for  the  clear  scarlet  of  one,  like  a  blaz- 
ing camellia  among  gardenias ;  and,  for  a  day 
after,  their  dark  loveliness  stayed  in  my  mind. 
They  had  had  tea,  probably,  in  the  corner  of 
a  high  cool  room  with  a  marble  floor,  fur- 
nished in  pale  gilt.  I  had  no  doubt  that  a 
piano  had  been  played  for  a  brief  explana- 
tory dancing,  the  trial  of  new  steps  neither 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
French  nor  Spanish,  but  American.  Some  of 
them,  I  knew,  had  been  at  school  in  New 
York — probably  Miss  Spence's,  where  bal- 
conies were  not  cultivated — and  I  wondered 
what  they  thought  about  the  Havana  to  which 
they  had  returned.  Well,  if  the  Cuban  men, 
the  fathers  and  suitors  and  husbands,  pre- 
ferred to  keep  the  historic  architecture  of  their 
society,  of  their  climate,  a  convent  of  some 
Sacred  Heart  would  be  wiser  than  a  cele- 
brated American  finishing  school. 

The  New  York  scene,  however  carefully 
veiled  and  chaperoned,  was  a  disquieting 
preparation  for  the  Prado,  or  even  Vedado. 
What  the  life  on  an  estancia  was,  I  couldn't 
imagine;  I  had  been  told  that,  for  a  woman, 
oftener  than  not,  it  was  still  a  model  of  Cas- 
tilian  rigidity.  It  had,  in  fact,  been  suggested 
to  me  that  I  write  the  story  of  such  a  girl,  shut 
away  from  everything  that  she  had  been  per- 
mitted to  see  and  desire.  Unquestionably  a 
splendid  subject,  one  of  the  vessels  that  would 
hold  everything  an  ability  could  pour  into  it. 
I  realized  at  once  which,  in  that  individual 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
struggle,  must  conquer — the  heredity  of  Cuba 
would  be  more  powerful  than  an  isolated  fem- 
inine need.  The  other  women,  the  elders, 
who  surrounded  her,  would  be  as  relentless  as 
any  husband,  and  in  the  end  she'd  become  fat 
and  listless. 

Widely  different  balconies  held  my  at- 
tention— on  one,  flooded  with  the  morning 
sun,  two  women  with  carnation  cheeks  and 
elaborately  dressed  hair,  but  for  the  rest  strik- 
ingly informal,  laughed  an  invitation  to  me 
that  took  no  account  of  the  hour.  They  were, 
I  suppose,  tawdry,  the  cheap  familiars  of  a 
cheap  street;  but  the  gay  orange  wall  where 
they  lounged  like  the  painted  actors  of  a  zar- 
zuela,  their  yellow  satin  slippers  and  should- 
ers impudently  bare  above  chemises  pink  and 
blue,  all  gave  them  a  certain  distinction. 
Again,  in  the  section  of  Jesus  del  Monte,  there 
were  buildings  brilliantly  and  impossibly 
painted,  usually  with  cafes  on  the  ground, 
whose  balconies,  exposed  to  an  intolerable 
heat,  overlooked  dingy  sun-baked  fields. 
They  were  always  empty.  .  .  .1  could  never 
[116] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
imagine  their  use — for  there  was  not  only 
nothing  to  see,  but  no  one  to  be  seen  by.  The 
houses  of  Havana,  admirable  in  the  closeness 
of  the  city,  possible  in  a  bougainvillia-smoth- 
ered  suburb,  were  depressingly  inappropriate 
to  any  contact  with  the  country.  They  were 
lost,  detached  or  strayed  away  from  their  fel- 
lows; for  the  happy  plan  of  the  country  house 
was  that  of  exposure  to  all  the  favorable  winds 
that  blew,  to  verandas  and  open  halls  rather 
than  balconies  and  patios:  it  was  merged  into 
vistas  and  not  relentlessly  and  jealously  shut  on 
every  face. 

A  fact  that  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  trop- 
ics or  the  outskirts  of  Havana,  where  wide 
dusty  stone  avenues  dropped  abruptly  in  soft 
roads,  and  the  balconies  were  added  purely 
from  habit.  My  own  balcony,  at  the  Hotel 
Inglaterra,  was  ideally  placed,  with  its  com- 
mand of  an  angle  of  the  Parque  Central.  I 
often  sat  there  before  dinner,  or  past  the  mid- 
dle of  night;  there  was  always,  then,  a  wind 
stirring  over  San  Rafael  Street;  but  the  bal- 
conies on  either  side«of  me,  above  and  below, 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
were  invariably  empty,  their  purpose,  it  was 
plain,  mistrusted. 


*     * 


The  patios  of  Havana,  turned  so  uncompro- 
misingly from  the  street,  were,  perhaps  for 
that  reason,  even  more  engaging  than  the  bal- 
conies. I  saw  them,  except  those  of  the  gov- 
ernment buildings  and  others  semi-public, 
through  opening  or  half  open  doors,  or  some- 
times I  looked  down  into  them  from  superior 
heights.  They,  too,  were  countless  in  variety, 
from  the  merest  kitchen  areas  and  places  of 
heaped  refuse  to  lovely  garden  rooms  of  flow- 
ers and  glazed  tiling  and  fountains.  This 
sense  of  privacy,  of  enclosure,  in  a  garden  was 
their  most  charming  feature;  and  the  possi- 
bilities and  implications  of  a  patio  created  a 
whole  social  life  with  which  I  was  necessarily 
unfamiliar.  They  were,  usually,  in  the  hours 
I  knew  them,  empty  but  for  passing  servants 
.  .  .  obviously  their  time  was  late  afternoon 
or  evening:  fixed  to  the  inner  walls  were  the 
iron  brackets  of  lamps,*  and  it  was  easy  to 
[118] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
imagine    them    dimly    lighted    and    flooded 
with  perfume,  with  the  scent  of  magnolias  and 
the  whisper  of  the  fountains. 

These  details,  separately,  were  not  rare,  but 
shut  into  the  masonry  of  Havana,  their  beauty 
shown  in  momentary  glimpses  on  streets  of 
blank  walls,  their  fragrance  drooping  into  un- 
expected barren  places,  the  patios  stirred  my 
inherent  desires.  As  usual,  I  didn't  want  to 
be  gazing  at  them  from  without,  but  to  be  a 
part  of  their  existence:  I  wanted  to  sleep  on 
one,  in  a  room  nothing  but  a  stone  gallery,  or 
watch  the  moonlight  slip  over  the  leaves  of  the 
crape  myrtles  and  the  tiles  and  sink  into  the 
water.  But  not  to-day,  for  there  were  dis- 
cordant sounds  through  the  arches  with  slen- 
der twisted  Moorish  pillars — the  subdued 
harshness  of  mechanical  music,  the  echoes  of 
that  dissatisfaction  which  was  everywhere  now 
recognized  as  improvement.  I  demanded 
guitars. 

The  masculine  chords  of  the  guitar,  the  least 
sentimental  of  instruments,  as  the  Spaniards 
were  the  least  sentimental  of  people,  the  deep 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
vibration  of  resinous  stopped  strings,  was  the 
perfect  accompaniment  to  that  color  visible 
and  invisible.  Invisible!  Always  that,  first 
and  most  potent.  The  perpetuity  of  atmos- 
phere through  transmitted  feeling  was  far 
more  absorbing  than  the  other  chimera,  of  in- 
corruption.  It  was  tradition,  more  than 
moonlight,  that  steeped  the  patios  with 
kindled  obscure  romantic  longings.  Within 
their  formal  squares  they  held  the  spirit  of  a 
great  history  and  of  two  great  races,  two  con- 
tinents. They,  the  patios,  were  the  East  in 
the  West,  the  Moroscos  on  the  Peninsula. 

The  dress  of  the  present,  even  the  floating 
films  of  the  women,  was  misplaced;  these 
were,  in  reality,  the  courtyards  of  the  Orient, 
and  they  needed  the  dignity  of  grave  robes  and 
gestures,  bearded  serenity.  In  them,  initially, 
women  had  been  flowers  lightly  clasped  with 
bands  of  rubies  and  dyed  illusory  veils;  there 
had  been  no  guitars  then,  but  silver  flutes. 
However,  I  had  no  desire  to  be  a  part  of  that 
time;  it  was  Spain  that  possessed  me,  and  not 
in  Grenada  but  Cuba,  during  the  Captain- 
[120] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
generalship  of  the  Conde  de  Ricla,  in  the  sev- 
enteen sixties  when  the  British  conquests  un- 
der Albemarle  were  returned  to  the  island. 
That  was  a  period  of  building  and  prosperity, 
the  fortifications  of  San  Carlos  and  Atares  were 
established,  Morro  and  the  Cabanas  refash- 
ioned, and  the  streets  and  houses  of  Havana 
named  and  numbered.  The  decline  of  Spain, 
a  long  imperceptible  crumbling,  had  already 
begun,  but  its  effect  was  not  visible  in  Cuba; 
there  still  was  a  Castilian  arrogance  burned 
more  brown,  more  vivid,  by  the  Caribbean. 

A  little  late  for  the  plate  ships  sailing  in 
cloudy  companies  and  filling  Havana  with  the 
swords  of  Mexico  and  Peru ;  but  my  mind  and 
inclinations  were  not  heroic;  I  could  dispense 
with  Pizarro's  soldiers,  fanciful  with  the  orna- 
ments of  the  Incas,  for  the  quiet  of  walled 
gardens,  the  hooped  brocades  of  court  dresses; 
all -the  transplanted  grace  of  the  city  and  hour. 
Climate  was  greater  than  man,  and  the  first 
Cubenos,  dead  in  the  mines  of  Cobre,  were 
being  revenged  for  the  usurpation  of  their 
happiness  and  land;  the  negroes  of  the  slave 

[12!] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
trade,  too,  were  repaying  their  chains  to  the 
last  link  of  misery.  But  these  counter  in- 
fluences were  not  perceptible  yet  in  the  patios, 
just  as  the  French  Revolution  had  still  to  scat- 
ter the  polite  pastorals  only  to  survive  in  the 
canvases  of  Boucher  and  Watteau. 

It  was,  in  Havana  as  well  as  Seville,  the 
farewell  of  true  formality,  for  after  that  it 
became  only  a  form.  No  one,  afterwards, 
was  to  bow  instinctively  as  he  left  a  room  or 
dance  to  the  measures  of  Beethoven  and  Mo- 
zart. A  useless  plant  cut  down  by  a  rusty 
scythe!  The  elegance  of  Cuba,  however, 
changing  into  later  Victorianism,  was,  in  the 
time  of  de  Ricla,  greatly  erfhanced  by  its  sur- 
rounding, by  the  day  before  yesterday  when 
there  had  been  only  thatched  bohios  where 
now  were  patios  of  marble.  Those  quiet 
spaces  were  sentient  with  all  this,  just  as  the 
patios  of  the  churches  -held  the  sibilant  whis- 
per of  the  sandals  of -the  Inquisition,  an  order 
already  malodorous  and  expelled  from  the  is- 
land by  Antonio  Maria  Bucarely,  the  follow- 
ing Captain-general. 

[122] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
But  even  yet  it  would  be  possible,  with  the 
details  carefully  arranged,  to  find  an  emo- 
tional situation  in  a  patio  undisturbed  since 
the  middle  eighteenth  century;  for  the  re- 
venge of  the  Cubenos  and  of  Africa,  of  the  red 
and  the  black  slaves,  was  that,  with  the  faint 
or  full  infusion  of  their  bloods  into  their  con- 
querors, dwindled  unintelligible  desires  and 
dreamlike  passions  entered  as  well.  A  discol- 
oration of  the  mind  as  actual  as  the  darkening 
of  the  skin!  And  I  pictured  an  obscure  im- 
pulse buried  in  the  personality  of  a  sensitive 
and  reserved  man,  such  a  trait  as,  at  moments 
of  extreme  pressure,  would  betray  him  into  a 
hateful  savagery;  or  it  might  be  better  brought 
out  by  a  galling  secret  barbarity  of  taste.  The 
Spain  of  Philip,  primitive  Africa,  and  a  vir- 
ginal island  race  constrained  into  one  body 
and  spirit  must  be  richly  dramatic. 

It  was  imperative  to  regard  the  patios  in 
such  a  light,  with  a  strong  infusion  of  reality, 
for, 'half  apprehended,  they  produced  that  thin 
tinkling  note  of  sham  romance;  they  evoked, 
for  a  ready  susceptibility,  the  impressions  of 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
opera  bouffe  ...  a  danger  constantly  present 
in  my  thoughts.  As  it  was,  I  should  be  ac- 
cused again  of  avoiding  the  actual  and  the  dif- 
ficult for  an  easy  unreality;  but  there  was  at 
least  this  to  be  said  for  what  I  had,  in  writing, 
laid  back  in  point  of  time — no  one  had 
charged  me  with  an  historical  novel. 

There  was  another,  perhaps  safer,  attitude 
toward  the  balconies  and  patios  of  Havana:  to 
regard  them  in  an  unrelieved  mood  of  realism, 
to  show  them  livid  with  blue  paint  and  echo- 
ing with  shrill  misery,  typhoid  fever,  and  pov- 
erty. If  I  did  that,  automatically  a  number  of 
serious  critical  intellects  would  give  me  their 
withheld  support,  they  would  no  longer  re- 
gard me  as  a  bright  cork  floating  thoughtlessly 
over  the  opaque  depths  of  life.  Well,  they 
could — they'd  have  to — go  to  the  devil ;  for  I 
had  my  own  honesty  to  serve,  my  own  plot  to 
tend — a  plot,  as  I  have  said,  where,  knowing 
the  effort  hopeless,  I  tried  only  to  grow  a 
flower  spray.  If  I  could  put  on  paper  an  ap- 
ple tree  rosy  with  blossom,  someone  else  might 
discuss  the  economy  of  the  apples. 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
Or,  in  Havana,  of  the  oranges.  In  the 
meanwhile  the  patios  gave  me  an  inexhaustible 
pleasure.  Sometimes  the  walls  were  glazed 
with  tiles  and  the  octagonal  surface  of  the 
fountain  held  the  reflected  tracery  of  bamboo, 
while  a  royal  palm  towered  over  the  balusters 
of  the  roof  and  hanging  lamps  were  crowned 
with  fretted  metal.  Another,  with  its  flags 
broken  and  the  basin  dry,  was  deserted  except 
for  the  soundless  flame-like  passage  of  chro- 
matic lizards;  still  another  was  bare,  with 
solid  deep  arcades  and  shadows  on  the  ground 
and  a  second  gallery  of  gracefully  light  arches. 
There  was,  in  one,  a  lawn-parasol  in  candy- 
colored  stripes  with  low  wicker  chairs  and  gay 
cushions;  on  a  table  some  tall  glasses  elbowed 
a  syphon,  English  gin,  and  a  silver  dish  of 
limes,  and  a  blue-and-yellow  macaw  was  se- 
cured to  a  black  lacquer  stand. 


*     * 


That,  evidently,  was  not  characteristic  of 
Havana,  and  yet  the  city  absorbed  it,  made  it  a 
part  of  a  complex  richness,  a  complexity  as 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
brilliantly  blended  as  a  rainbow.  At  first  I 
had  been  entranced  by  the  sudden  colorful  dis- 
play, it  had  seemed  to  be  in  one  marvellously 
high  key;  but  now  I  recognized  that  it  was 
composed  of  the  entire  scale,  and  that  there 
were  notes  profoundly  dark.  I  should  have 
known  that,  for  I  had  been,  when  I  was  much 
younger,  a  painter,  and  I  had  learned  that 
surfaces  which  seemed  to  be  in  one  tone  were 
made  up  of  a  hundred.  The  city,  of  course, 
was  an  accumulation  of  the  men  who  had 
made  it,  the  women  who  had  lived  there ;  and 
it  was  possible  that  Havana  had  as  intense  and 
varied  a  foundation  as  any  place  that  had  ex- 
isted. 

Not  in  the  sense,  the  historical  importance 
of,  for  example,  Athens;  I  had  already  said 
that  Havana  was  a  city  without  history,  which 
was  true  in  the  cumulative,  inter-human  mean- 
ing of  that  term.  But  it  had,  within  its  limits, 
on  its  island  like  a  flower  in  air,  an  amazing 
and  absorbing  past.  In  the  beginning,  where 
Spain  was  concerned,  Cuba,  a  fabulous  land, 
had  promised  fabulous  gold;  but  the  empires 

[.26] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
of  the  Aztecs  and  Peru,  incalculably  richer, 
and  the  fatal  dream  of  eternal  youth  in  Flor- 
ida, had  robbed  it  of  royal  interest,  of  men, 
food,  and  ships.  It  had  settled  back,  lost  to 
most  concern  beyond  a  perfunctory  colonial 
administration,  into  a  region  of  agriculture, 
affected  only  indirectly  by,  and  affecting  not 
at  all,  the  universal  upheaval  elsewhere. 
Within  Havana  itself,  then,  moulded  by  the 
burning  sun,  the  cooling  night  winds,  and  the 
severing  water,  a  peculiarly  essential  human 
development  had  taken  place.  And  its  his- 
tory was,  for  this  reason,  elusive,  most  difficult 
to  grasp;  hopelessly  concealed  from  a  mere 
examination  of  bastions. 

One  by  one  the  colors  of  its  fantastic  design 
grew  clearer  to  me;  period  by  period  the 
streets  and  people  became  intelligible,  until 
they  reached  the  middle-century  era  to  which 
I  was  so  susceptible.  To  arrive,  with  the  in- 
gredients of  a  tropical  Spain  and  the  pirates 
of  the  world,  at  an  early  Victorianism  was  a 
mystery  which  demanded  a  close  investiga- 
tion. That  air  enveloped  all  the  center  of  the 
[127] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
city,  its  paseos  and  plazas  and  buildings,  and 
still  influenced  the  social  life.  This,  I  finally 
decided,  came  from  the  fact  that  the  architec- 
tural spirit  which  dominated  Havana  was  of 
the  period  before  Eastlake;  or  at  least  I  was 
not  familiar  with  any  structures  erected  in 
such  a  style,  so  lavishly  marble,  since  then. 

There  was  no  absence  of  modernity  in  the 
wharfs  and  streets,  but  that  loud  impetuous 
tide  poured  through  the  ways  of  a  quieter  wa- 
ter, and  in  the  side  passages  the  sound  dimin- 
ished. Havana  was  a  great  port,  but  the 
steam  shipping  along  its  waterfront  was  in- 
congruous with  the  low  tranquil  whiteness,  the 
pseudo-classicism,  of  the  buildings  that  held 
along  the  bay.  The  latter  particular,  elabor- 
ated from  my  first  impression,  carried  the  city 
back  to  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  and 
the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth.  I  had  no  in- 
tention of  examining  the  dates  of  numerous 
structures,  but  the  stamp  of  their  time  was  on 
the  Ionic  entablatures.  Then  women,  as  well, 
had  copied  in  their  dress  the  symbol  of  the 
Greek  column,  of  sculpture  instead  of  paint- 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
ing,  except  for  the  charming  and  illogical  in- 
novation of  turbans;  and  they  went  about  in 
sandals  and  gowns  falling  straight  from  their 
looped  breasts.  Such  a  figure,  with  her  head 
bound  in  vermilion,  must  have  been  enticing 
in  the  great  shaded  bare  rooms.  There  must 
have  been,  too,  an  extraordinary  assemblage 
of  negro  pages  and  majordomos  in  ruby  silks 
and  canary  and  velvet. 

The  feminine  silhouette  changed  remark- 
ably in  thirty  years,  from  a  column  to  a  cone, 
from  the  ultimate  in  flowing  lines  to  a  bou- 
quet-like rigidity;  and  the  severity  of  furnish- 
ings, of  incidentals,  expanded  in  queer  elab- 
orations. It  was,  notably,  a  period  of  pru- 
dery, of  all  which,  objectively,  I  disliked; 
while  at  the  same  time  there  had  been  the  un- 
dercurrent of  license  that  always  accompanied 
an  oppressive  hypocrisy.  This,  I  could  see, 
was  true  of  its  age  in  Havana:  men — the  real 
prudes — had  been  heavily  whiskered  at  home 
with  a  repressed  morality,  and  betrayed  in 
another  quarter  by  heredity  and  the  climate. 
Two  periods  that,  except  for  some  beautiful 
[129] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
books,  had  been  steeped  in  an  ugliness  from 
which  the  world  had  not  recovered.  Indeed, 
while  it  was  now  fashionable  to  deride  them, 
the  present  was,  in  some  ways,  perceptibly 
worse:  Literature  was,  perhaps,  bolder  in 
scope,  but  it  showed  hardly  more  than  a  sur- 
prise at  the  sound  of  its  comparative  liberty 
of  speech.  The  art  of  painting  had  burst  into 
frantic  fragments  that  might  or  might  not 
later  be  assembled  into  meaning;  the  architec- 
ture had  degenerated  into  nothing  more  than 
skilful  or  stupid  adaptation. 

In  the  large  disasters  that  were  sweeping 
the  world,  the  mad  confusion  of  injustice  and 
revolt,  of  contending  privilege,  the  serene 
primness  of  Havana,  its  starched  formality  of 
appearance,  offered  a  priceless  quietude.  It 
was,  at  once,  static  and  mobile,  a  place  of 
countless  moods  that  merged  at  the  turning  of 
a  corner,  the  shifting  of  a  glance  from  La 
Punta  to  the  circular  bandstand  at  the  foot  of 
the  Prado.  Never  pedantic,  it  was  a  city  more 
for  the  emotions  than  the  intellect;  intellect, 
in  its  astigmatic  conceit,  had  largely  over- 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
looked  Havana;  and  Havana  had  missed  little 
enough.  Its  monuments  and  statues,  where 
they  were  complacently  innocent  of  art,  had 
been  brought  into  harmony  of  tone  by  the  at- 
mosphere vivid  like  the  flambeau  trees,  the 
inconceivable  blueness  of  its  sea.  The  colors 
of  the  houses,  glaringly  or  palely  inappropri- 
ate, were  melted  and  bound  into  inevitable 
Tightness.  Even  the  cemetery,  frosted  with 
tombs  like  a  monstrous  iced  cake,  its  shafts 
that  might  have  been  the  crystallized  stalag- 
mites of  the  caves  of  death,  resembled  noth- 
ing more  disturbing  than  the  lacy  pantalets 
of  the  time  it  celebrated.  It  was  the  final  ac- 
complishment of  mid-Victorian  horror,  with 
its  pit  of  mouldering  bones  and  solemn  ritual- 
istic nonsense;  yet  the  thought  of  the  ponder- 
ous gold  and  black  catafalques  rolling  in  pro- 
cession between  the  horizontal  white  slabs,  of 
the  winking  candles — all  the  ghastly  appen- 
dages of  religious  undertaking — and  the 
clergy  in  purple  and  fine  cambric,  with  ame- 
thyst rings  on  their  fat  or  their  thin  fingers, 
gave  it  the  feeling  of  a  remote  mummery. 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
The  cemetery  from  which  I  escaped  with 
relief  and  the  cafe  that  I  entered  with  pleas- 
ure— again  the  Telegrafo — flowed  together  in 
the  city's  general  impression.  I  could  see  the 
statue  of  Marti,  and,  as  I  looked,  it  changed 
into  the  statue  of  Isabel ;  then  that,  too,  van- 
ished. The  broad  paved  avenue,  the  flagged 
walks,  became  a  gravelled  plaza  about  which 
the  girls  promenaded  in  one  direction  to  pass 
constantly  the  youths  circling  in  the  other. 
The  vision  flickered  and  died,  and  I  went  on 
to  lunch  through  the  Havana  of  so  many  days 
smoothly  packed  into  one. 

I  felt  that  my  first  sense  of  instinctive  fa- 
miliarity had  been  justified;  yet,  in  the  cor- 
ridor of  the  Inglaterra,  asked  by  a  traveler 
how  to  get  to  a  restaurant,  the  Dos  Hermanos, 
I  was  unable  to  reply;  and  a  third  American, 
brushing  me  aside,  gave  him  voluble  instruc- 
tions. It  ended  by  his  being  taken  out  and 
seated  in  a  hack,  while  the  other,  in  angry 
execrable  and  fluent  Spanish,  told  the  driver 
where  to  proceed.  Whatever  I  had  learned, 
it  seemed,  was  of  no  practical  value;  my  mul- 
[132] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
tiple  sensations  were  not  reducible  to  the  sim- 
plest demand.  A  woman  passed  with  a  copy 
of  an  ultra  popular  novel,  and  this  recalled  the 
long  struggle  of  my  early  books  for  the  small- 
est recognition.  If  that  dark  frame  of  mind 
had  fastened  on  me  in  the  north,  it  would  have 
burdened  me  for  a  day;  but  in  Havana,  with 
the  Marquis  de  Riscal  and  a  For  Larranaga, 
I  envied  no  mediocre  novelist  her  stereotyped 
laurels.  It  was  impossible  to  get  anywhere  a 
better  wine  or  a  cigar  that  changed  more 
soothingly  from  the  brown  of  fact  to  blue 
fancy. 


*     *     * 


The  Cuban  cigarettes,  however,  were  too 
strong  for  pleasure;  for,  while  the  preference 
for  a  strong  cigar  was  admissible,  cigarettes 
should  be  mild.  All  those  famous  were. 
Strangely  enough,  good  cigarettes  had  never 
been  smoked  in  the  United  States,  a  land  with 
an  overwhelming  preference  for  the  cheap 
drugged  tobacco  called  Virginia.  No  one 
would  pay  for  a  pure  Turkish  leaf;  with  the 

[133] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
exception  of  a  few  hotels  and  clubs  it  was  not 
procurable.  There  was  a  merchant  on  the 
Zulueta  with  a  large  assortment  of  Cuban  cig- 
arettes, made  in  every  conceivable  shape  and 
paper,  hebra  and  arroz  and  pectoral.  They 
had  tips  of  gilt  or  silver  paper,  cork,  straw,  and 
colored  silks,  and  were  packed  in  enticing 
ways  and  odd  numbers.  But,  after  trying 
their  apparent  variety,  they  all  seemed  alike, 
as  coarse  and  black  in  flavor  as  their  tobacco. 
There  were,  of  course,  men  who  disagreed 
with  me — though  women  never  liked  a  Ca- 
banas or  Henry  Clay  cigarette — and  a  connec- 
tion of  mine,  a  judge,  long  imported  from 
Cuba,  through  Novotny  of  New  York,  the 
Honoradez  tobacco  for  his  cigarettes.  He 
had  been  in  Havana  during  the  Spanish  oc- 
cupation, and  later;  and,  recalling  him,  I 
could  see  that  he,  like  myself,  possessed  an  in- 
eradicable fondness  for  it.  In  his  case,  even, 
his  memories  might  have  affected  his  exterior, 
for  he  had  a  lean  darkness  more  appropriate 
to  the  Calzada  del  Cerro  than  to  Chester 
County.  In  summer  particularly,  with  his  im- 

['34] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
maculate  linens,  and  the  brown  cigarette  cast- 
ing a  pungent  line  of  smoke  from  his  long  sen- 
sitive fingers,  he  was  the  image  of  a  Spanish 
colonial  gentleman. 

He  had  known  Havana  at  a  better  time  than 
now,  when  it  was  more  provincial,  simpler; 
the  hotels  then  were  uncompromisingly  locked 
at  ten  in  the  evening,  and  if  he  returned  later 
he  was  forced  to  call  the  negro  sleeping  in  the 
hall.  I  don't  remember  where  he  stayed — 
probably  at  the  Inglaterra.  I  was  young  and 
ignorant  of  Cuba  when  I  saw  him,  with  a  cer- 
tain frequency,  before  he  died ;  and  I  heard  his 
talk  about  the  Parque  Central  with  no  greater 
interest  than  his  discussions  of  salmon  fishing, 
of  Sun  and  Planet  reels  and  rods  split  and 
glued.  I  realized  sharply  what  I  had  missed, 
both  in  the  way  of  detail — the  detail  most  im- 
portant to  a  mental  picture  and  always  missing 
—and  in  intimate  understanding  of  Cuban  af- 
fairs. For  he  had  a  tonic  mind,  rare  in  Amer- 
ica, unsentimental  and  courageous,  and 
touched  with  a  satirical  quality  disastrous  to 
sham,  social,  religious,  or  political. 

[135] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
The  cigarettes  came  to  him  in  bright  tin 
boxes  of  a  hundred;  and,  after  his  death,  I 
bought  seven  from  Novotny  and  smoked  the 
contents  almost  by  way  of  memorial ;  for  he 
was  a  personality  of  a  type  almost  gone. 
Judges  of  County  Courts  no  longer  wore  im- 
maculate high  hats  to  the  Bench,  with  the 
vivid  corner  of  a  bandanna  handkerchief 
visible  in  the  formality  of  their  coat  tails. 

The  silk-tipped  cigarettes  were  for  women, 
but  the  silk  was  principally  a  villainous  car- 
mine, a  color  fatal  to  the  delicate  charm  of 
lips,  and  I  hoped  that  I  should  see  none  so 
thoughtless  as  to  smoke  them;  while  the 
cigarettes  all  of  tobacco  were,  frankly,  impos- 
sible. Why,  I  couldn't  say;  they  simply 
wouldn't  do.  W'hat  women  I  saw  smoking  in 
public,  in  the  cafes  and  at  the  races,  were  not 
Cubans.  They,  on  view,  neither  smoked  nor 
drank  anything  but  ref  rescos.  But  a  different 
feminine  world,  at  their  doors  or  over  the 
counters  of  bodegas,  enjoyed  long  formidable 
cigars. 

An  amusing  convention,  a  prejudice  really; 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
an  act,  in  women,  condemned  from  the  associa- 
tions in  men's  minds,  synonymous  with  that 
gaiety  they  so  painstakingly  kept  out  of  their 
homes.  Yet,  in  spite  of  them,  women  smok- 
ing had  become  a  commonplace  in  the  United 
States.  In  Havana  men  were  still  paramount 
.  .  .  and  Victorian.  On  the  Obispo  cigarette- 
cases  from  Toledo,  of  steel  inlaid  with  gold, 
were  for  sale;  but  I'd  had  experience  with 
Toledo  work — the  steel  rusted.  For  years  I'd 
bought  cigarette  cases  and  holders  before  I 
finally  learned  that  the  former  were  a  nuisance 
and  that  the  latter  destroyed  the  flavor  of 
tobacco.  I  had  owned  cases  in  metal  and 
leather  and  silk,  patented  and  plain,  and  one 
by  one  they  were  mislaid  and  given  away.  I 
had  smoked  with  holders  of  ivory  and  jet  and 
tortoise  shell,  wood  and  amber  and  quills,  and 
they,  too,  had  disappeared.  All  that  could  be 
said  for  them  was  that  they  looked  well  and 
saved  the  fingers  from  nicotine  stains. 

The  Turkish  cigarettes  in  Havana  were  un- 
remarkable, yet,  for  the  Cuban  youth,  the 
sign  of  worldliness.  They  disdained  the  local 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
brands,  but  even  Cuba  was  powerless  to  depre- 
ciate her  cigars,  the  best  of  all  countries  and 
all  times.  Here  was  an  accomplishment,  a 
possession,  of  unique  importance  and  excel- 
lence, for  tobacco  belonged  to  the  irreducible 
number  of  necessities.  I  had  survived  pro- 
hibition, with  the  assistance  of  a  forethought 
unhappily  limited  in  execution;  but  if  the 
absurdity  of  my  country  abolished  tobacco,  I 
should  be  forced  to  move  to  England;  that 
would  be  too  much.  I  could  imagine,  in  this 
case,  what  comments  would  appear  in  the 
press,  reminding  the  virtuous  and  patriotic 
that  my  books  had  always  been  chargeable 
with  immorality  and  a  blindness  to  the  splen- 
dor of  our  national  ideals. 

In  the  past  I  had  suffered  a  particularly 
wretched  nervous  breakdown — it  hit  me  like 
a  bullet  in  the  Piazza  della  Principe  in  Flor- 
ence; and  when  I  had  politely  been  sent  to 
Switzerland  to  die,  an  English  doctor  at 
Geneva  cured  me,  for  most  practical  purposes, 
by  impatience,  black  coffee,  and  Shepherd's 
Hotel  cigarettes.  I  had  no  doubt  that  smok- 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
ing  was,  in  many  ways,  a  very  deleterious 
habit;  but  life  itself  was  a  bad  habit  con- 
demned to  the  worst  of  ends.  I  was,  as  well, 
very  apt  to  have  little  in  common  with  men 
who  didn't  smoke,  or,  I  should  say,  with  men 
who  had  never  smoked.  They  were,  with 
practically  no  exceptions,  precisians,  and  ate, 
lived,  for  their  health  rather  than  for  the  tang 
of  delicate  sauces  and  sensations.  And  a 
long  while  ago  a  wise  and  charming  woman 
had  lamented  to  me  the  fact  that  all  the  gener- 
osity and  attractiveness  she  met  in  men  be- 
longed to  what  were  colloquially  called 
drunks.  .  .  .  Her  feeling  was  the  same  as 
mine. 

I  wasn't  defending  drunkenness  or  attack- 
ing the  statistics  against  smokers;  what  I  felt, 
I  think,  in  such  men  was  the  presence  of  a 
fallibility  to  which,  at  awkward  or  tragic  mo- 
ments, they  yielded  and  so  became  companions 
of  sorrow  and  charity,  the  great  temperers  of 
humanity.  At  any  rate,  I  demanded  enough 
liberty,  at  least,  to  fill  my  system  with  smoke 
if  I  willed.  The  possibility  that  my  act  might 

[i39] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
hurt  some  one  else  failed  to  excite  me — why 
should  I  bother  with  him  when  I  wasn't  con- 
cerned about  myself!  There  was  too  much 
officious  paternalism  in  the  air,  too  many  ad- 
monitions and  not  enough  lightness  of  heart— 
of  tobacco  heart  if  necessary. 

In  addition,  I  wasn't  sure  that  I  wanted  to 
be  perfectly  sanitary  in  mind  and  body,  any 
more  than  I  was  certain  of  the  complete  de- 
sirability of  a  perfected  world,  of  heaven. 
At  once,  there,  my  lifelong  occupation  would 
be  gone — novelists  never  stopped  to  think 
what  would  happen  to  them  if  all  the  reforms 
for  which  they  shouted  should  go  into  effect; 
and  I  had  a  disturbing  idea  that  a  great  deal 
of  my  pleasure  in  life  came  from  feelings  not 
always  admissible  in,  shall  I  say,  magazines  of 
a  general  character.  A  clean  mind  and  a 
pure  heart  were  not  without  chilling  sugges- 
tions of  emotional  sterility.  Since  men  had 
hopelessly  and  forever  departed  from  the 
decency  of  simple  animals,  I  wanted  to  enjoy 
the  silken  and  tulle  husks  that  remained.  If 
there  was  a  sedative  in  cigars,  an  illusion  in  a 
[140] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
Daiquiri  cocktail,  I  proposed  to  enjoy  it  at  the 
expense  of  a  problematic  month  or  year  more 
of  life  always  open  to  the  little  accidents  of 
pneumonia  or  spoiled  milk  or  motors. 


*     *     * 


What  might  be  called  the  minor  pleasures 
of  life,  though  in  their  bulk  were  vastly 
more  important  than  the  great  moments,  Ha- 
vana had  carried  to  a  high  state  of  perfection; 
yet  with,  where  I  was  concerned,  an  exception 
not  in  favor  of  the  theatre.  I  went,  as  I  had 
determined,  to  whatever  offered,  swept  along 
by  the  anticipation  of  Spanish  dancing  and 
music:  the  first  was  immeasurably  the  best  in 
existence,  and  I  liked  the  harsh  measures  of 
Spanish  melody,  both  the  native  songs  of  the 
countryside  and  the  sophisticated  arrange- 
ments by  Valverde.  A  great  many  skilful 
writers  had  described  the  dancing,  and  their 
accounts  were  well  enough,  but,  politely,  they 
all  lacked  the  fundamental  brutality  of  the 
jota  and  malaguena,  just  as  the  foreign  op- 
eratic variations  on  Spanish  themes  were  re- 

[HI] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
minted   in   a   smooth   and   debased  universal 
coin. 

I  purchased  a  ridiculously  flimsy  scrap  of 
paper,  which,  I  was  assured,  made  me  the  pos- 
sessor of  a  grille  principal  at  the  Pairet 
Theatre — a  box,  as  huge  as  it  was  bare,  within 
the  stage.  I  could  see,  under  the  hood,  the 
long  dramatic  hand  of  the  prompter  waving  to 
the  droning  monotony  of  his  voice  through  the 
stupidest  performance  I  remembered.  It  was, 
by  turn,  a  comedy,  a  farce,  a  pantomime,  and  a 
comic  opera,  and  a  complete  illustration  of  the 
evils  of  departing  from  national  tradition  and 
genius — a  dreary  attempt  at  the  fusion  of 
Vienna  and  New  York,  planned,  obviously, 
for  a  cosmopolitan  public  superior  to  the  rude 
familiar  strains  of  gypsies. 

At  intervals  a  chorus  of  young  women, 
whose  shrill  excitement  belied  their  patent 
solidity,  made  an  incongruous  appearance  and 
declamation;  they  grouped  themselves  in 
feeble  designs,  held  for  a  moment  of  scattered 
applause,  and  went  off  with  a  labored  light- 
ness that  threatened  even  their  ankles.  This 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
was  bad,  but  a  revista — I  could  think  of  noth- 
ing else  to  call  it — at  the  Marti  was,  because  it 
was  so  much  better,  worse.  There  I  had  an 
ordinary  palco,  enclosed  by  a  railing  from  the 
promenade  and  elevated  above  the  body  of  an 
audience  composed  of  every  possible  shade 
from  fairest  noon  to  unrelieved  midnight. 
The  evening  was  divided  into  two  perform- 
ances, for  the  second  of  which,  Arco-Iris,  a 
largely  increased  price  was  demanded.  This 
was,  again,  Vienna  and  Broadway,  but  with, 
in  addition,  an  elaboration  of  color  and  light- 
ing ultra-modern  in  intent. 

I  had  seen  the  same  effort  ten  years  before 
in  Paris,  and  the  failure  was  as  marked  in 
Spanish  as  in  French.  Mr.  Ziegfield,  assisted 
by  the  glittering  beauty  of  the  girls  he  was 
able  to  secure,  had  made  such  spectacles  bril- 
liantly and  inimitably  his  own.  The  Latins 
knew  nothing,  really,  about  legs :  they  showed 
them  with  what  was  no  more  than  a  perfunc- 
tory bravado,  while  it  was  a  peculiarity  of 
shoulders — the  art  of  which  they  so  daringly 
comprehended — that  their  effect  was  lost  in 

[143] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
mass.  The  display,  the  extravagant  settings 
and  costumes,  of  Arco-Iris,  were,  throughout, 
mechanical;  the  coryphees  were  painfully 
aware  of  their  dazzlements;  and  an  Andalu- 
sian  number,  looked  forward  to  with  weary 
eagerness,  had  been  deprived  of  every  rude 
and  vigorous  suggestion  of  its  origin. 

When  I  returned  to  the  Inglaterra  I  de- 
manded of  a  clerk  where  I  could  find  a 
vulgar  performance  of,  for  instance,  the  haba- 
nera, but  he  shook  his  head  doubtfully.  At 
intervals,  he  admitted,  Spanish  dancers  came 
to  the  National  Theatre;  but — his  manner 
brightened — Caruso  was  expected  in  May.  I 
had  no  intention  of  staying  in  Havana  through 
May;  and,  had  I  been  there,  I'd  have  avoided 
Caruso  ...  a  singer  murdered  by  the  Vic- 
trola.  Already  the  seats  for  his  concerts  were 
a  subject  for  speculation,  and  it  was  clear  that 
they  would  reach  a  gigantic  price,  between 
forty  and  sixty  dollars  for  a  single  place  in  the 
orchestra.  In  this  depressing  manner  Havana 
made  it  evident  that  it  was  a  city  both  fash- 
ionable and  rich. 

[144] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
There  had  been  a  time,  too,  I  was  informed, 
when  all  the  uncensored  moving  pictures  of 
the  world  found  a  home  in  Cuba;  pictures 
where  embraces  were  not  limited  to  a  meagre 
number  of  feet,  nor  layettes,  the  entire  ramifi- 
cations of  procreation,  prohibited.  But  these 
were  gone  from  the  general  view.  The  films, 
though,  had  not  been  destroyed,  and  for  some 
hundreds  of  dollars  a  private  performance 
might  be  arranged.  But  this  I  declined. 
The  moving  picture  industry  had  been  brought 
entirely  from  America,  the  theatres  plastered 
with  Douglas  Fairbanks'  set  grin,  William 
Farnum's  pasty  heroics,  and  Mary  Pickford's 
invaluable  aspect  of  innocence.  Never,  in  the 
time  I  was  in  Cuba,  did  I  see  a  Spanish  actor 
or  film  announced;  although  a  picture,  appro- 
priate to  Lent,  of  the  Passion,  hinted  at  a  dif- 
ferent spirit. 

I  became,  then,  discouraged  by  the  formal 
entertainments.  As  usual,  I  was  too  late;  the 
process  of  improvement  had  everywhere 
marched  slightly  ahead  of  me,  substituting  for 
the  genuine  note  a  borrowed  false  emphasis. 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
To-morrow  I  should  hear  the  Salvation  Army 
bawling  in  Obispo  Street.  In  a  state  of  indif- 
ference I  went  to  Carmelo,  a  dancing  pavilion 
with  an  American  cabaret,  and  drifted  to  the 
table  where  the  singing  and  dancing  profes- 
sion were  having  their  inevitable  sandwiches 
and  beer.  A  metallic  young  person  with 
brass  hair,  a  tin  voice,  and  a  leaden  mind,  con- 
versed with  me  in  the  special  social  accent  of 
her  kind,  ready  in  advance  with  a  withering 
retort  for  any  licentious  proposals.  Beside 
her  sat  a  Mexican  with  an  easy  courtesy  and 
an  enigmatic  past.  He  was,  I  gathered,  the 
son  of  an  official  who,  in  one  of  the  extermi- 
nating changes  of  government,  had  escaped 
over  a  wall  in  his  pearl  studs  and  dinner  coat 
but  little  else. 

I  liked  everything  about  him  but  his  indul- 
gence for  soda  blondes;  yet  in  the  serious  con- 
versation we  at  once  opened — connected  with 
a  projected  trip  of  mine  to  the  City  of  Mexico 
— we  forgot  the  girl  until,  exasperated  by  our 
neglect,  she  lost  some  of  her  manner  in  an  in- 
ane exclamation  made,  she  announced,  for  the 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
sake  of  Christ.  Her  companion  immediately 
returned  to  his  engagement,  and  I  watched  the 
Americans  more  or  less  proficient  in  that  dance 
the  name  of  which  had  been  borrowed  from  a 
woman's  undergarment.  It  had  begun  as  a 
chemise,  but  what  it  would  end  in  was  prob- 
lematic. 

Was  it  a  healthy  rebellion  against  the  pru- 
dery of  repression  or  the  adventitious  excita- 
tion of  imminent  impotence?  Whatever  had 
brought  it  about,  it  was  stupid,  an  insensate 
jiggling  of  the  body  without  frankness  or 
grace.  I  hadn't  yet  seen  the  Cuban  rumba, 
with  its  black  grotesque  negrito  and  sensual 
mulata;  but  I  was  confident  that  if  a  rumba 
were  started  at  Carmelo,  the  shimmy  would 
resemble  the  spasmodic  vibrations  of  a  frigid 
St.  Vitus  dance.  The  men  and  women  doing 
it,  galvanized  by  drink  and  the  distance  from 
their  responsibilities,  animated  by  the  Cuban 
air,  were  prodigiously  abandoned.  They 
were,  mostly,  commercial  gentlemen  and  stiff 
brokers  investigating  sugar  securities,  or  the 
genial  obese  presidents  and  managers  of  steam- 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
ship  companies.  The  presidents,  the  mana- 
gers and  brokers,  were  invariably  accompanied 
by  their  wives,  who,  for  the  most  part,  en- 
deavored to  re-create  the  illusions  and  fervors 
of  earlier  days;  but  heaven  knew  from  where 
came  the  women  for  whom  the  representatives 
of  Yankee  merchandise  were  responsible. 

Their  origins  were  as  mysterious  as  their 
age — strange  feminine  derelicts  stranded  by 
temperament  and  mischance,  caught  in  the 
destructive  web  of  the  tropics.  The  dresses 
they  wore  were  either  creations  or  makeshifts, 
but  their  urbanity  was  as  solidly  enamelled  as 
their  hair  was  waved  or  marcelled.  There 
was  still  another  variety — I  had  seen  them  be- 
fore at  expensive  fishing  camps — tightly 
skirted,  permanently  yellow-haired,  with 
stony  faces  and  superfine  diamonds.  Drunk 
or  sober,  their  calmness  was  never  changed  by 
so  much  as  a  flicker;  they  caught  sail  fish  in  the 
Gulf  Stream,  danced,  ate,  talked,  and  now, 
certainly,  were  flying,  with  the  same  hard  im- 
perturbability and  display,  in  gold  mesh  bags, 
of  their  unlimited  crisp  money  in  high  de- 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
nominations — the  granite  women  on  the  wall 
of  the  Gallego  Club. 


*     * 


My  interest,  however,  in  the  American  in 
Havana  had  vanished,  my  position  in  life, 
avoidance  rather  than  protest,  and  I  surren- 
dered him  to  the  hospitality  of  Cuba  and  the 
gambling  concessions.  I  wanted,  from  then 
on,  only  the  local  scene:  there  were  cities 
where  the  foreigners,  the  travelers,  made  an 
inseparable  part  of  the  whole,  but  this  was  not 
true  of  Havana;  it  remained,  in  spite  of  the 
alien  clamor,  singularly  undisturbed,  intact,  in 
essence.  But  a  few  streets,  a  plaza  or  two, 
knew  the  sound  of  English,  and  beyond  these 
the  voices,  the  stores,  the  preoccupations,  were 
without  any  recognition  of  other  people  or 
needs.  I  began  to  wander  farther  from  the 
cafes  of  the  Parque  Central,  the  open  famil- 
iarity of  the  sea,  and  found  myself  in  situa- 
tions where,  in  my  lack  of  Spanish,  I  was  lim- 
ited to  the  simplest,  most  plastic,  desires. 

It  was  in  this  manner  that  I  found  ear-rings 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
which  I  secured  with  a  sense  of  treasure — they 
were  in  the  shop  of  a  woman  who  sold  em- 
broidered linen  from  Madeira  and  the  Canary 
Islands,  lying  haphazard  in  the  lid  of  a  paste- 
board box.  The  patio  opened  directly  from 
the  front  room,  the  store,  an  informal  assem- 
blage of  dull  white  folded  cloths  and  frothy 
underclothes,  and  outside  a  very  large  family 
indeed  was  eating  the  noon  breakfast  while  a 
pinkly  naked  pointer  dog  lay  on  the  cool  tiles 
with  his  feet  extended  stiffly  upward. 

I  was  paying  for  some  towels,  and  regret- 
ting— in  a  singular  composite  of  inappropriate 
words  and  banal  smiles — the  interruption  of 
the  meal,  when  I  saw  the  ear-rings;  and  im- 
mediately, in  the  face  of  all  the  warning  and 
advice  wasted  on  me,  I  exclaimed  that  I 
wanted  them.  At  this  they  were  laid  on  the 
counter,  a  reasonable  price  murmured,  and 
the  transaction  was  over.  I  gathered  that 
they  had  been  left  for  sale  by  some  member 
of  an  old  Cuban  house,  perhaps  by  a  Baeza  y 
Carvajal  or  Nunez:  they  were  of  pale  hand- 
carved  and  drawn  gold,  aged  gold  as  yellow 


I 

San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
as    a   lemon — one    pair   of   open    circles    an 
inch  in  diameter,  with  seed  pearls;  the  other 
the  shape  of  small  delicate  leaves,  with  pearls 
and  topazes. 

A  store  unmarked  in  exterior  but  surpris- 
ing within  attracted  me  by  some  Chinese- 
Spanish  shawls,  mantones,  in  a  dusty  show- 
case; and  I  discovered  a  short,  heavily-built 
Spaniard  stringing  the  hair  of  a  wig  against 
a  background  of  scintillating  costumes  for  the 
carnivals,  balls,  and  masques.  We  were  unable 
to  understand  each  other,  his  wife  wrinkled 
her  forehead  in  desperation  over  my  Spanish; 
and  then,  gesticulating  violently,  she  vanished 
to  reappear  with  a  neighbor,  a  woman  who 
seemed  to  have  suffered  all  the  personal  mis- 
fortunes reserved  for  school  teachers,  who 
made  intelligible  a  small  part  of  what  we  said. 

They  had,  it  developed,  other  shawls, 
shawls  worth  my  attention;  one,  in  particular, 
finer  even  than  any  of  Maria  Marco's.  This 
engaged  me  at  once,  for  Maria  Marco  was  the 
prima  donna  of  a  Madrid  company  which 
had  sung  in  the  United  States  two  years  before, 

['5'] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
and  which  had  given  me,  perhaps,  as  great 
pleasure  as  anything  I  had  seen  on  the  stage. 
But  not  so  much  for  the  singing — it  had  been 
the  dancer,  Doloretes,  who  captivated  me,  a 
woman  as  brilliant  as  the  orange-red  shawl 
draped  before  me  over  a  chair,  and  suddenly, 
tragically,  dead  in  New  York. 

The  wig-maker  had  had  charge  of  the  ward- 
robe of  The  Land  of  Joy,  and  he  assured  me 
again  that  not  Maria  Marco.  .  .  .  Abruptly 
there  was  spread  the  sinuous  fringed  expanse 
of  a  blazing  green  shawl  heavily  embroidered 
in  white  flowers.  I  had  never  encountered  a 
clearer,  more  intense  green  or  a  whiter  white; 
and,  before  I  had  recovered  from  the  delight- 
ful shock  of  that,  a  second  shawl  of  zenith  blue 
was  flung  beside  it.  The  body  of  the  crepe- 
de-chine,  the  weight  of  its  embroidery,  the 
beautiful  knotting  of  the  short  fringe — long 
fringe  was  an  error — and  their  sheer  loveli- 
ness, made  them  more  desirable  than  jewels; 
and,  prepared  to  buy  them  at  once  at  the  price 
of  whatever  fiction  anyone  wanted  me  to  write 
and  would  pay  absurdly  for,  I  was  lifting 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
their  heavy  folds  when  a  third  mantone  was 
produced  burning  with  all  the  gorgeous  and 
violent  colors  imaginable. 

It  was,  I  suppose,  magenta — a  magenta  of  a 
depth  and  wickedness  impossible  for  any  but 
Eastern  dye;  the  magenta  of  a  great  blossom 
of  hell — and  it  was  embroidered  with  flowers 
like  peonies,  four  spans  across,  in  a  rose  that 
was  vermilion,  a  vermilion  that  was  scarlet; 
and  the  calyxes  were  orange  and  gamboge, 
emerald  and  peacock  blue  and  yellow.  There 
were,  too,  golden  roses,  already  heavy  and 
drooping  with  scent  in  the  bud,  small  primi- 
tive blossoms  with  red  hearts,  dark  green 
leaves,  and  dense  maroon  coronals  starred  in 
white.  The  dripping  fringe  was  tied  in  four 
different  designs.  .  .  . 

I  asked  its  price  at  once,  in  order  to  dispose 
of  what  couldn't  help  being  painful  in  the  ex- 
treme, and  he  told  me  with  an  admirable  ap- 
pearance of  ease  and  inconsequence.  The 
shop,  that  had  been  only  half  lighted  by  the 
door,  was  now  tumultuous  with  color,  with 
China  and  Andalusia;  the  shawl  was  the 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
Orient  and  Spain,  brutal  in  its  superbness  and 
as  exasperating,  as  audible,  as  castanets. 
However  I  might  act,  hesitate,  visibly,  I  knew 
that  I'd  buy  it — in  an  instant  it  had  become  as 
imperative  to  me  as  a  consuming  vice.  It  be- 
longed, rightfully,  to  the  mistress  of  a  Zuluoga 
or  of  a  Portuguese  king,  to  someone  for  whom 
money  was  not  even  an  incident;  I  couldn't 
afford  it  even  if  I  wove  it  into  a  story  with  a 
trace,  a  glimmer,  of  its  splendor;  but  the  next 
day  the  shawl  was  in  my  room. 

Oppressed  by  a  sense  of  monetary  insanity 
not  unfamiliar  to  me — I  was  very  apt  to  buy 
an  Airedale  terrier  or  a  consol  table  with  the 
sum  carefully  gathered  for  an  absolute  neces- 
sity— I  set  about  turning  my  new  possession 
into  paragraphs  and  chapters;  and  it  occurred 
to  me  that  it  had  a  justified  place  in  the  Ha- 
vana story  I  had  already,  mentally,  begun. 
The  polite  young  men  of  the  time,  the  decora- 
tive youth  of  all  times,  were  apt  to  have  col- 
lectively a  passion  for  a  fascinating  or  cele- 
brated actress;  and  I  saw  that  such  a  person — 
Doloretes — would  be  important  to  my  plan. 

[154] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
Yes,  my  young  figure  and  his  fellows  would 
go  nightly  to  see  her  dance. 

Afterward,  crowded  about  a  marble-topped 
table  and  helados,  they  would  discuss  her 
every  point  with  fervent  admiration.  Yet  she 
would  be  too  vivid,  too  special,  to  take  the 
foreground — I  had  wanted  no  paramount 
women  in  the  first  place — and  I  decided  .  .  . 
to  kill  her  almost  at  once,  to  have  her  as  a 
memory.  My  boy,  most  certainly,  would  find 
her  shawl  exactly  as  I  had;  and,  bringing  it 
to  his  room,  solemnly  exhibit  it  to  'his  circle. 
More  than  that,  I  realized,  it  had  given  me  a 
title,  The  Bright  Shawl.  I  instantly  deter- 
mined to  cast  the  story  in  the  form  of  a  mem- 
ory told  me  by  an  old  man  of  his  youth ;  and 
that  time,  torn  by  unhappiness,  indecision,  and 
hopeless  aspirations,  should  be  made,  in  re- 
membrance, brilliant  and  desirable,  wrapped 
in  the  bright  shawl  which  transformed  the 
lost  past. 

A  remarkably  good  story,  I  thought  enthu- 
siastically; and  I  fell  to  speculating  if  George 
Lorimer  would  print  it.  He  would  give  it,  I 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
told  myself,  a  wide  margin  of  chance;  but, 
in  writing,  uncomfortable  necessities  often 
turned  up  in  the  course  of  narrative — I  could 
leave  them  out,  and  damn  myself,  or  keep 
them  and,  maybe,  damn  the  story  in  the  sense 
of  its  making  possible  my  writing  at  all.  Not 
that  Mr.  Lorimer  personally  had  any  regard 
for  emasculated  chapters,  but  he  was  ad- 
dressed primarily  to  another  integrity  than 
mine;  our  purposes  were  not  invariably  coin- 
cident. A  fact  which  he,  with  his  energetic 
candor  scoring  pretentiousness,  had  made  clear 
in  his  generous  recognition  of  where  our  paths 

met. 

*     *     * 

What  was  noticeable  in  The  Bright  Shawl 
was  that  I  hadn't  gone  out  for  material,  but  it 
had  come  to  me,  scene  by  scene,  emotion  by 
emotion.  I  had  never  been  able  deliberately 
to  set  about  collecting  the  facts  for  a  proposed 
story;  I  could  never  tell  what  impulse,  need, 
would  be  strong  enough  to  overcome  the  la- 
borious effort  demanded  for  its  realization  in 
words.  For  this  reason  I  was  free  to  see  what 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
I  chose  without  reference  to  any  ulterior  pur- 
pose; and  when,  on  a  Sunday  morning  with 
the  heat  tempered  by  a  breeze  lingering  from 
the  night,  I  started  for  the  cock-fighting  at 
the  suburb  of  Jesus  del  Monte,  I  was  com- 
pletely at  ease.  I  had  decided  in  favor  of  the 
cock-pit  both  because  it  was  essentially  Cuban 
and  because  I  had  always  detested  chickens, 
particularly  roosters. 

It  was  a  thing  of  total  indifference  to  me 
what — with  steel  spurs  or  without — roosters 
did  to  each  other.  Alive,  they  were  a  con- 
stant galling  caricature,  a  crude  illuminative 
projection,  of  men  at  their  ridiculous  worst. 
Their  feathered  tails,  their  crowing,  their 
propensity  to  search  for  bits  in  the  dung,  their 
sheer  roosterness,  together  with  the  sly  hypoc- 
risy of  hens,  had  always  annoyed  me  individu- 
ally. And,  rather  than  not,  I  looked  forward 
to  seeing  them  victimized  by  their  own  bellig- 
erent conceit. 

I  had  to  leave  my  cab  for  an  informal  way 
behind  some  buildings  and  across  grass,  and, 
as  I  approached  a  false  stucco  facade,  a  deter- 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
mined  ringing  crowing  filled  the  air.  Be- 
yond the  arched  entrance  there  was  an  area 
of  pavement  with  tables  and  a  limited  cafe 
service;  and,  seated  near,  was  a  grave  indi- 
vidual with  a  shovel  beard  and  a  thoroughly 
irritated  rooster  upside  down  in  his  lap.  He 
was  cementing  a  natural  spur  over  one  that 
had  been  injured,  and  drinking,  now  and 
again,  from  a  cup  of  coffee  at  his  hand.  Be- 
yond was  the  pit,  like,  as  much  as  anything, 
a  tall  circular  corn-crib,  painted  white,  with 
a  cupola.  There  was  place  for  about  three 
hundred,  with  box-like  seats  whose  low  hinged 
doors  opened  directly  on  the  sawdust  of  the 
arena,  more  casual  chairs,  and — as  at  the  pe- 
lota — space  for  standing  on  the  middle  tiers. 
There  was  a  box  above  the  entrance,  and  an- 
other opposite,  and  this  an  enormous  woman 
in  white  embroidery  and  carpet  slippers,  and 
I  occupied. 

A  main  had  just  been  finished,  and  there 
was  a  temporary  lull  in  the  noise  inseparable, 
in  Cuba,  from  sport.  The  sawdust  was  being 
freshly  sprinkled  when  a  negro  entered  the 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
ring  with  an  animated  bag;  and,  noting  the 
elaborate  polished  brass  scales  that  hung  from 
the  center  of  the  roof,  I  gathered  that  the 
birds  were  to  be  weighed.  The  second  was 
produced,  tightly  bagged,  by  a  highly  respec- 
table-appearing man  of  unimpeachable  white- 
ness and  side  whiskers,  and  the  roosters  were 
left  to  dangle  from  the  yard.  It  was  to  be  a 
battle  al  peso,  by  weight  and  equal  spurs;  the 
first  condition  satisfied,  the  spurs  were  meas- 
ured, by  a  graduated  set  of  pewter  tallies;  and 
the  uproar  was  released. 

It  was  deafening — a  solid  shouting  of  bets 
offered  in  a  voice  of  fury,  together  with  ac- 
ceptances, repudiations,  personalities,  and  the 
frenzied  waving  in  air  of  handfuls  of  money. 
The  two  men  with  the  roosters  advanced  to- 
ward each  other  and  wooden  lines  laid  in  the 
pit,  prodding  and  otherwise  increasing  the 
natural  ill  humor  of  their  birds,  and  held  the 
shorn  heads  close  for  a  vicious  preliminary 
peck.  The  roosters'  legs,  shaved  to  an  inde- 
cent crimson,  were  bare  of  hold,  every  super- 
ficial feather  had  been  clipped;  and  when 

[-59] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
they  hit  the  sawdust  there  was  a  clash  as  of 
metal.  The  methods  of  their  backers  were 
different — the  negro,  in  one  of  the  local  coat- 
like  shirts  with  a  multiplicity  of  useless  pock- 
ets and  plaits,  squatted  on  his  heels,  impassive, 
fateful,  and  African;  but  the  man  with  the 
orthodox  side-whiskers  became  at  once  the  vic- 
tim of  a  hoarse  whispering  excitement.  As 
the  other's  bird  reeled  drunkenly  about — they 
were  badly  matched  and  the  main  no  affair 
at  all — his  pallid  face  flushed  and  he  suggested 
new  atrocities  to  his  champion. 

This,  it  seemed  to  me,  was  totally  unneces- 
sary, for  a  wickeder  rooster  I  was  convinced 
never  lived.  He  was  deliberate  in  his  tactics, 
unwilling  to  be  robbed  of  his  pleasure  by  a 
chance  coup  de  grace,  and  confined  himself  to 
the  beak.  Soon  his  opponent  leaned  help- 
lessly against  the  wall  of  the  pit,  while  the 
victor  methodically  pecked  him  to  death 
in  small  bloody  pieces.  The  negro's  face, 
couched  on  a  charcoal-black  palm,  was  as  im- 
mobile as  green  bronze;  but  the  white  was 
positively  epileptic  with  triumph.  And, 
[160] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
when  the  defeated  bird  sank  in  a  spoiled  dead 
knot,  he  picked  his  up  and,  with  expressions  of 
endearment,  sucked  clear  its  angry  eyes.  The 
preliminaries  were  again  gone  through  with, 
and  two  large  handsome  roosters  were  con- 
fronted by  each  other.  As  the  surging  clamor 
beat  about  them  I  saw  that  one  was  undecided 
in  his  opinion  of  what  promised.  He  flapped 
his  wings  doubtfully;  and  then,  as  the  other 
made  a  short  rush  forward,  he  turned  and  ran 
as  fast  as  his  shorn  legs  could  carry  him. 
This,  considering  the  contracted  round  space 
of  his  course,  was  very  fast  indeed ;  the  second, 
pursuing  him  with  the  utmost  energy,  was 
unable  to  get  closer  than  a  fleet  dab  at  the 
stripped  tail.  It  was  a  flight  not  without  a 
desperate  humor;  but  this,  it  was  clear,  was 
appreciated  by  no  one  besides  me. 

The  execrations,  the  screams,  that  followed 
the  retreating  bird  were  beyond  belief;  the  en- 
tire banked  audience  was  swept  by  a  passion 
that  left  some  individuals  speechlessly  lifting 
impotent  fists.  Unaffected  by  this,  the  rooster, 
slightly  leaned  toward  the  center  of  gravity, 
[161] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
went  around  and  around  the  pit  with  an  un- 
flagging speed  that  should  have  commanded 
an  independent  admiration  for  itself.  Occa- 
sionally the  pursuer,  in  a  feat  of  intelligence, 
cut  directly  across  the  sawdust,  and  a  collision 
threatened  .  .  .  but  it  never  quite  arrived.  I 
lost  interest  in  the  hurled  curses,  the  hats 
twisted  in  excesses  of  rage,  in  everything  but 
the  duration  of  the  running  rooster.  It  was  re- 
markable; he  had  settled  down  to  putting  all 
he  had  of  strength  and  reserve  into  his  single 
purpose. 

He  had  no  will  to  fight,  and,  personally  un- 
derstanding and  sympathizing  with  him  com- 
pletely, I  hoped  his  wish  would  be  respected : 
while  he  had  provided  no  main,  he  had  faith- 
fully substituted  a  most  unlooked-for  and 
thrilling  race;  making  for  all  time  and  nations 
and  breeds  of  chickens  a  record  for  a  thousand 
times  around  a  cock-pit.  In  some  places  he 
would,  perhaps,  have  been  released,  returned 
to  the  eminence  of  a  barn-yard;  but  not  in 
Cuba.  When  it  had  been  thoroughly  demon- 
strated that  he  was  uncatchable  by  his  rival, 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
he  was  incontinently  seized  and  both  roosters 
were  carried,  panting  and  bald-eyed,  to  a  sub- 
sidiary ring  beyond,  not  half  the  size  of  the 
principal  pit,  where  running,  or  any  discre- 
tion, was  an  impossibility. 

I  saw  him  go  with  regret;  he  deserved  a 
greater  consideration,  and  I  hoped  that,  meta- 
phorically in  a  corner,  he  would  turn  and  be 
victorious.  A  new  individual,  a  small  brown 
man  in  soiled  linen,  had  entered  the  box,  and 
he  at  once,  in  a  slow,  painful,  but  intelligible 
English,  opened  a  conversation  with  me.  He 
had,  he  said,  a  consuming  admiration  for 
Americans,  and  as  an  earnest  of  his  good  will 
he  proposed  to  let  me  in  on  what,  in  the 
North,  was  called  a  good  thing.  It  was 
no  less  than  the  cautious  information  that 
in  the  next  fight  a  dark  chicken,  a  chicken 
carrying  a  betting  end  as  long  as  the  Prado, 
had  been  entered  by  President  Menocal's 
brother.  I  could,  with  a  wave  of  the  hand, 
make  a  small  fortune:  for  himself,  he  was  un- 
fortunate— he  possessed  but  eleven  dollars  and 
odd  pesetas. 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
I  made  some  non-committal  remark  and 
turned  a  shoulder  on  his  friendliness  for 
Americans,  conscious  of  a  distinct  annoyance 
at  having  been  mistaken  for,  well — a  tourist. 
There  was  no  inherent  inferiority  in  that 
transient  state  of  being;  but  it  was  a  charac- 
teristic of  the  settlers  of  any  given  place — set- 
tlers of  at  least  forty-eight  hours — that  they 
should  regard  with  tolerant  amusement  the 
new  and  the  uninformed.  He  did,  I  thought, 
my  clothes,  my  cigar,  my  whole  air  of  sophisti- 
cated comprehension,  an  injustice;  he  should 
have  recognized  that  I  was  not  an  individual 
to  accept  readily  public  confidential  informa- 
tion. 

The  birds  were  brought  in  and  weighed,  and 
the  person  in  the  box  with  me  and  the  billow- 
ing white  embroidery  and  carpet  slippers  ex- 
citedly indicated  a  lean  cream-colored  rooster 
with  brown  points.  I  fancied  the  other  more, 
and  thought  something  of  betting  on  him  when 
the  main  began — the  brown  bird  of  the 
brother  of  Menocal  flashed  forward,  launched 
himself  into  the  air  with  a  clash,  and  drove 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
both  spurs  through  the  head  before  him.  It 
had  occupied  something  more  than  five  but 
less  than  ten  seconds.  Too  bad,  a  deferential 
voice  murmured  in  my  ear,  that  I  hadn't  taken 
advantage  of  such  an  excellent  opportunity 
to  get  the  better  of  all  the  too-wise  ones. 
With  but  eleven  dollars  and  some  silver  he 
had  been  cramped.  .  .  .  My  interest  in  cock- 
fighting  faded  before  an  annoyance  that  drove 
me  away  from  the  Puente  de  Agua  Dulce,  cal- 
culating how  much,  at  the  odds  I  missed,  I 
should  have  gained. 

Money  won  at  sheer  gambling,  at  games  of 
chance  which  involved  no  personal  skill  or 
effort,  always  seemed  hardly  short  of  miracu- 
lous to  me — magical  sums  produced  at  the 
waving  of  a  hand.  Their  possession  gave  me 
a  disproportionate  pleasure  and  glow  of  well 
being;  they  seemed  to  be  the  mark  of  a  special 
favor;  the  visible  gesture,  the  approbation,  of 
fortune  and  chance.  I  had  had  a  lucky  night 
at  the  Kursaal  in  Geneva,  playing  baccarat, 
and  the  changier,  a  silver  chain  about  his  neck, 
had  reconverted  my  bowl  of  chips  into  heaped 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
gold  and  treasury  paper.  But  with  that  ex- 
ception, and  for  some  small  amounts,  I  was  un- 
lucky. The  occasion  just  past  was  an  illus- 
tration— I  was  never  really  disastrously  over- 
taken, but  equally  I  never  reached  sensational 
heights. 

There  were,  certainly,  numerous  places  in 
Havana  for  roulette,  and  always  the  American 
Club  for  auction  bridge  and  poker;  but  I 
found  my  way  to  none  of  these:  there  were 
men  who  could  hear  the  soundless  turn  of  a 
wheel,  soundless  but  for  the  fillip  of  the  pith 
ball  on  the  wood  and  metal,  through  the  streets 
and  walls  of  a  city;  and  there  were  others  who, 
merely  pausing  in  a  hotel  or  club  corridor, 
would  immediately  form  about  them  all  the 
adjuncts  of  poker — the  cards,  the  blue  and 
yellow  and  white  chips,  the  bank  president,  the 
shifty  polite  individual  with  pink  silk  sleeves 
and  a  rippling  shuffle,  the  rich  youth.  .  .  . 
But,  indebted,  I  suppose,  to  my  spectacled 
benevolent  appearance,  such  occasions  let  me 
pass  unnotified. 

I  made,  however,  some  effort  to  find  a  bil- 
[i  66] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
liard  academy,  with  the  hope  of  seeing  the  pro- 
fessional games  and  their  audiences  built  up 
on  the  four  sides  of  the  tables,  common  to  the 
Continent;  but  if  there  were  any  in  Havana, 
they,  too,  eluded  me.  I  hoped  to  see  bearded 
champions  embrace  each  other  after  chalking 
their  cues  and  then  drive  the  ivory  balls  in  red 
and  white  angles  across  the  deep  green  or 
nurse  them  about  the  intersections  of  the  balk 
lines.  It  was  very  different  in  America, 
where  the  billiard  parlors  were  a  part  of  hotel 
life — great  rooms  with  the  level  green  of  the 
tables  fogged  in  smoke  through  which  the 
lights  resembled  the  diminished  moons  of  Sat- 
urn; the  audience,  entirely  masculine,  seated 
on  the  high  chairs  about  the  walls. 

The  types  of  women  lingering  outside,  wait- 
ing patiently  on  convenient  benches,  were  far 
different  from  the  Latins.  Occasionally  a 
youth  would  put  up  his  cue,  dust  the  chalk 
from  his  fingers,  assume  his  accurately  fitted 
coat,  his  soft  brown  hat,  and  go  out  to  some 
girl  with  whom  he  would  plunge  into  a  sub- 
dued council  marked  by  a  note  of  expostula- 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
tion.  Strange  youth  and  unpredictable  girl! 
A  term  of  endearment  would  escape,  there'd 
be  a  quick  clinging  of  hands;  and,  from  an 
imitation  gold  purse,  some  money  would  be 
transferred  to  an  engulfing  pocket. 

But  the  men  of  Havana,  it  seemed,  were 
quite  contented  to  talk,  to  sit  in  a  cafe  over 
refrescos  or  in  a  parque  with  nothing  at  all 
but  cigars,  and  discuss  eternally,  with  a  pas- 
sionate interest,  the  details  of  their  politics  and 
city.  Their  contact  with  life  at  every  point 
was  vivid  and,  in  expression  anyhow,  force- 
ful; they  argued  in  a  positive  tone  to  which 
compromise,  agreement,  appeared  hopelessly 
lost;  and  there  was  in  the  background  the  pos- 
sibility of  death  by  quarreling.  That,  in  it- 
self, gave  their  whole  bearing  a  difference 
from  the  conduct  of  a  land  where  a  drubbing 
with  fists  was  the  worst  evil  to  be  ordinarily 
expected.  They  looked  with  contempt  on  a 
blow,  the  retaliation  of  stevedores,  and  we  re- 
garded with  disgust  a  concealed  weapon.  But 
where  we  might  still,  in  simpler  places,  de- 
fend what  was  locally  called  purity  with  pis- 
[168] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
tols,  no  one,  today,  took  his  politics  seriously. 

Politics,  in  the  United  States,  was  looked  on 
with  cynical  indifference,  where  it  was  not  a 
profession,  but  in  Cuba  it  was  invariably  the 
cause  of  fiery  oratory  and  high  tempers.  This 
had  been  true  of  America;  even  in  my  own 
memory,  in  the  Virginia  Highlands,  shotguns 
had  been  out  for  a  difference  of  principals; 
but  patriotism  of  that  stamp  had  fallen  away 
before  civilization,  as  it  was  optimistically 
termed — the  end  finally  brought  about  by  pro- 
hibition. Discussion  in  general,  that  rose  in 
such  volume  on  the  Cuban  night,  had  little 
part  farther  north ;  my  own  friends,  the  men 
specially,  almost  never  said  anything  except 
as  a  direct  statement;  we  never  met  to  talk. 

They  had  a  particular,  a  concrete,  interest  in 
living,  but  no  general.  Further  than  that, 
there  was  almost  no  individuality  of  opinion; 
the  subjects  which  made  good  conversation 
were  definitely  and  arbitrarily  settled,  closed. 
To  open  them,  to  challenge  public  opinion, 
was  not  to  invite  argument,  but  to  send  men 
away  to  the  greater  safety,  the  solidity,  of  the 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
herd.  A  good  story,  the  humor  of  the  latrine, 
was  a  better  key  to  respectability  than  an  hon- 
est doubt.  For  those  reasons  I  wanted  to  join 
the  arguments,  the  orations  really,  flooding  the 
circles  of  green-painted  iron  chairs  on  the  Ha- 
vana plazas;  and,  solitary,  I  passed  envying 
the  ingenuous  welding  dissent. 

I  imagined  myself  suddenly  and  completely 
changed  into  a  Cuban,  slight  and  dark,  in 
white  linen,  with  my  hat,  a  stiff  English  straw, 
carefully  laid  beside  me  on  a  ledge  of  the  pav- 
ing, smoking  a  cigar  of  rough  shape  but  ex- 
cellent tobacco.  Not  rich,  certainly,  but  se- 
curely placed  in  life!  I  was,  in  fancy,  the 
proprietor  of  a  small  yet  thoroughly  responsi- 
ble oculist's  establishment  on  Neptuno  Street. 
Since  I  was  no  longer  young,  and  a  member 
of  organized  society,  with  a  patron  or  two 
from  the  Prado,  I  was  conservative,  but  little 
heated  by  patriotism;  and  in  favor,  rather  than 
not,  of  annexation  to  the  United  States.  My 
private  view  was  that  Cuba  hadn't  been  con- 
spicuously worse  off  under  Spain  than  liber- 
ated. The  politics  of  the  present,  when  office- 
[170] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
seekers  descended  to  the  nanigos.  .  .  .  Here 
was  the  substance  of  violent  argument  and  re- 
criminations; the  voices,  the  ideals,  of  young 
men  beat  on  me  in  a  high  indignant  storm;  the 
names  of  Cuban  patriots,  martyred  students, 
and  Spanish  butchers  were  shouted  in  my 
ears.  Sacred  blood  flowed  again  in  retro- 
spect, which  should  never  be  allowed  to  sink 
infertile;  but  when  the  words  Free  Cuba  were 
pronounced  I  waved  my  cigar  with  hopeless 

derision. 

*     *     * 

How  significant  it  was,  I  thought,  that,  in 
imagination,  I  had  pictured  myself  at  fifty. 
I  saw  the  Havana  oculist  clearly;  his  name, 
by  all  means,  was  Rogelio,  Rogelio  Mola,  and 
he  had  a  heavy  grey  moustache  across  his  lean 
brown  face  which  gave  him  an  air  of  gravity 
that  largely  masked  the  humor,  the  satire,  in 
his  quick  black  eyes :  Spanish  eyes  with  no  per- 
ceptible trace  of  the  soft  iris  of  Africa.  It 
was  past  one  o'clock  when  his  tertulia  scat- 
tered, and  I  accompanied  hjm  toward  his 
home — walking  to  get  rid  of  the  stiffness  of 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
long  sitting — over  Dragones  Street,  in  the  di- 
rection of  Vedado.  Not  yet,  never  now, 
would  he  have  a  house  in  Vedado  itself;  that 
was  reserved  for  the  bankers,  planters,  and 
Americans;  but  he  was  nicely  situated  in  a 
new  white  dwelling  of  the  approved  style, 
overlooking  a  common  that  in  turn  com- 
manded the  sea. 

The  approved  style  was  white  plaster,  a 
story  and  a  half  high,  with  an  impressive  por- 
tico— a  portico,  attached  to  a  small  private  res- 
idence, that  would  have  done  honor  to  a  capitol 
building.  There  was  but  little  ground,  prin- 
cipally extended  in  a  lawn  across  the  front, 
and  banked,  against  the  house,  with  the  spotted 
leaves  of  croton  plants,  purple  climbing 
Fausto,  and  Mar-Pacifico  flowers  deeply  crim- 
son. He  had,  it  was  plain  from  his  walk,  a 
touch  of  rheumatism,  of  sciatica  really,  and  he 
halted  in  the  Plaza  de  Dragones  to  press  his 
thin  hand  to  a  leg  and  curse,  by  the  Sacred 
Lady  of  Caridad,  the  old  age  overtaking  him. 

That,  it  seemed  to  me,  would  not  carry  his 
mind  toward  his  dwelling,  his  wife  grown  in- 
[172] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
ordinately  fat,  and  their  three  daughters,  all 
long  ago  asleep ;  no,  it  would  send  his  thoughts 
backward,  over  the  way  he  had  come — not 
from  the  Parque  Central,  but  from  youth. 
He  would  brush  his  moustache  reminiscently, 
I  was  confident,  at  a  train  of  gallant  memories, 
chiefly  of  New  York,  where,  on  the  pier  of  a 
fruit  importing  house,  he  had  spent  some  tre- 
mendous months.  That  experience  had  given 
him  an  advantage,  an  authority,  in  everything 
that  touched  the  great  republic,  and  lent  his 
politics  an  additional  sagacity,  his  cynicism  an 
edge  difficult  to  turn.  He  had  intended  to 
stay  in  America,  a  journey  to  Havana  was  to 
have  been  but  a  temporary  affair;  but  there  he 
had  attached  himself  to  a  wife,  the  daughter 
of  a  grinder  of  lenses.  .  .  .  And  here  he  was 
at  fifty,  going  back,  after  listening  to  a  lot  of 
nonsense  in  the  Parque,  to  his  family — in  the 
general  direction,  too,  of  the  cemetery. 

It  was  sad,  and,  for  a  moment,  there  was  a 

debate,  a  conflict,  in  his  mind :  though  his  age 

was  beyond  denial,  and  his  hip  troubled  him— 

but  only  after  he  spent  an  evening  on  the  cold 

[173] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
iron  chair  of  a  plaza — he  showed  no  signs  of 
having  passed  the  middle  of  his  life.  The 
grey  hair  was  distinguished;  Madame  Naza- 
bal,  who  was  a  Frenchwoman,  had  assured 
him  of  that.  The  handsome  girl  in  El  Cor- 
azon  de  Jesus,  the  Vedado  bakery  where  Eng- 
lish was  spoken,  flushed  when  their  hands 
accidentally  met  over  the  counter.  But  this 
mood,  his  courage,  was  fictitious;  it  sank  and 
left  him  limping  palpably,  with  an  oppressed 
heart.  He  was,  simply,  an  old  fool,  he  told 
himself,  vindicating  the  humorous  compre- 
hension of  his  gaze. 

If  he  wasn't  careful,  the  young  men  of  his 
establishment,  over  whom  he  kept  a  strict  par- 
ent-like discipline,  would  laugh  at  him  behind 
his  back.  They  were  inclined  to  be  wild  as  it 
was,  and  he  suspected  them  of  going  to  the  car- 
nival balls,  the  danzons,  in  the  opera  house. 
God  knew  that  he  had  seen  them  in  the  com- 
pany of  no  better  than  the  girls  from  the  cigar 
factories.  When  he  was  younger — young— 
that  dangerous  company  had  given  a  dance  on 
the  last  Thursday  of  every  month,  except  when 

[174] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
it  fell  in  Lent,  and  he  had  held  his  place  there 
with  the  most  agile  among  them,  once  even 
pressing  an  argument  with  a  man  who  was  re- 
puted to  have  been  an  espada  of  Castile.  A 
knife  had  grazed  his  throat  and  slit  the  left 
shoulder  of  his  coat  through  to  the  skin;  the 
mark  remained,  a  livid  welt  under  his  collar, 
but  the  assailant  had  vanished  before  he  could 
kill  him.  All  memory  of  the  girl  had  gone; 
but  she  was  beautiful,  he  was  certain  of  that, 
or  else  why  should  he  have  noticed  her? 

The  girls  of  those  days  had  a — a  quality,  a 
manner,  lacking  in  the  present.  Their  hearts 
had  been  warmer,  they  were  less  mercenary. 
Rogelio  Mola  detested  mercenary  women. 
Now,  as  far  as  he  could  make  out,  nothing  was 
possible  but  rounds  of  the  expensive  cafes:  the 
fact  was,  the  girls  only  wanted  to  be  taken  to 
the  Dos  Hermanos,  or  the  Little  Club,  where 
the  Americans  could  see  them,  and,  perhaps 
.  .  .  Then,  in  about  eighteen  eighty,  there  was 
some  fidelity,  some  horfor,  some  generosity. 
There  was  romance — that  had  disappeared 
more  utterly  than  anything  else:  he  was  more 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
than  a  little  vague  in  meaning;  his  romance 
was  an  indefinite  state ;  the  glow,  in  reality,  of 
his  own  youth. 

At  that  time,  in  such  discussions  as  had 
passed  this  evening,  he  had  been  on  the  side 
of  revolution,  of  expeditions  to  the  Trocha,  se- 
cret associations;  but  simply  because  his  blood 
was  hot,  his  age  appropriate  to  revolt.  He 
had  been,  without  doubt,  difficult;  his  elders 
had  predicted  a  cell  in  Cabanas  as  an  ante- 
room, a  sort  of  immediate  purgatory,  to  hell. 
He  raised  expressive  shoulders  slightly  at  the 
thought  of  the  holy  legends:  a  business  for 
women  and  priests.  The  Church,  tempo- 
rarily, had  had  some  rare  pasturage;  but  the 
fathers  were  a  shade  too  greedy;  they  had  gob- 
bled up  so  much  that  it  was  necessary  to  drive 
them  out.  Women  and  priests,  priests  and 
women!  The  latter  had  suffered  no  diminu- 
tion of  their  privileges;  they  had  too  much  for 
which  the  young  men,  for  all  their  self-opin- 
ion, got  nothing  or  next  to  nothing  in  return. 
Rogelio  Mola  wondered  if  the  old  houses  of 
pleasure  were  unchanged. 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
He  had  not  thought  of  them  for  years,  and 
he  was  contemptuous  of  men  of  his  age  who 
did,  still,  consider  them.  Not  that  he  was 
puritanical  and  condemned  all  such  institu- 
tions, though  he  had  a  strong  suspicion  that 
they  had  deteriorated.  For  the  youth  of  his 
day  they  had  been  very  largely  places  of  meet- 
ing and  conspiracy,  where  traditionally  the 
sentiment  supported  attacks  on  authority. 
Yet  a  girl  from  Lima  had  betrayed  Mario 
Turafa,  his  friend,  in  hiding,  to  the  Spanish 
Government.  It  was  said  that  Mario  had 
been  deported,  perhaps  to  the  very  Peru 
from  which  came  his  Delilah,  but  it  was 
more  probable  that  he  had  been  shot. 
There  had  been  one  whom  he,  Rogelio,  had 
liked.  .  .  .  Her  name  came  back  to  him,  Ana, 
and  the  fact  that  she  sang  quite  beautifully 
.  .  .  nothing  else.  The  words  of  a  song 
formed  from  the  melody  for  a  moment  audi- 
ble among  his  memories: 

"Clavales,  clavales 
de  mi  Andalucia! 
Mujeres,  mujeres — 
de  la  Patria  mia!" 

[177] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
It  was  evident  from  this  that  she  had  come 
from  Andalusia.  Thirty  years  ago!  He 
wished  her  the  best  of  luck.  Hadn't  they 
been  young  together,  with  at  least  the  inno- 
cence of  true  affection?  His  thoughts  turned 
guiltily  to  his  wife,  to  his  daughters  white  like 
flowers  of  the  Copa  de  Nieva.  The  twinge  in 
his  leg  resembled  a  hot  wire;  and  resolutely 
he  marshalled  his  attention  forward.  How 
dark,  how  depressing,  certain  reaches  of  Ha- 
vana were,  and  he  pictured  the  cemetery 
ghostly,  icy,  in  the  night;  women,  with  their 
confessional,  their  faith  in  the  forgiveness  of 
sins,  were  fortunate.  Yet  no  one  must  say  of 
him  that  he  was  a  coward,  that,  at  the  last,  he 
had  been  borne  into  oblivion  on  the  oil  of  the 
priests  he  had  disregarded  in  life.  Deep  un- 
der his  skepticism,  however,  a  low  inextin- 
guishable hereditary  flame  of  hope  burned, 
independent  of  his  intelligence. 


My  mind  returned  once  more  to  Rogelio 
Mola  as  I  was  standing  outside  an  impassive 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
door,  waiting  for  admittance,  not  far  from  the 
Arsenal.  It  was  the  entrance  to  what  he  had 
called  a  house  of  pleasure,  and,  long  estab- 
lished in  Havana,  unknown  to  America,  one 
that  he  might  easily  have  frequented  in  the 
reprehensible  period  of  youth.  I  had  ade- 
quate abstract  reasons  for  my  presence,  but 
Rogelio,  correctly  insistent  on  a  saving  gener- 
osity of  emotion,  had  needed  no  ponderous  ex- 
planation. Indeed,  I  was  there  in  his  interest, 
since,  after  all,  I  had  imagined  him;  I  wanted 
very  much  to  have  completely  the  material  of 
his  setting,  of  the  surrounding  from  which  his 
friend,  betrayed  by  the  Peru  that  had  centuries 
before  despoiled  Cuba,  had  been  led  out  to 
be,  doubtless,  shot.  Not  that,  pressingly,  I 
felt  the  need  for  an  excuse,  or  that  I  was  es- 
sentially making  a  descent.  The  very  bitter- 
ness, the  revilement  in  solemn  terms,  of  my 
early  instructions,  had,  reacting,  defeated  it- 
self. 

What  was  before  me,  in  a  world  where  the 
pure  and  the  impure  were  inexplicably  mixed 
in  one  flesh,  was  inevitable;  its  ugliness  lay 

[-79] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
not  with  it,  but  in  a  society  which,  constantly 
tearing  it  down,  as  constantly  projected  again 
the  penalty,  the  shadow,  of  a  perfunctory  and 
material  estate.  In  addition,  as  long  as  the 
age  of  marriage,  of  love,  was  so  tragically  dif- 
ferent in  society  and  in  nature,  an  informal  in- 
terlude was  unavoidable.  But  I  had  no  need 
to  apologize  for  anything.  I  had  been  spared 
the  dreary  and  impertinent  duty  of  improving 
the  world;  the  whole  discharge  of  my  respon- 
sibility was  contained  in  the  imperative  obli- 
gation to  see  with  relative  truth,  to  put  down 
the  colors  and  scents  and  emotions  of  existence. 
What,  pretentiously,  was  called  the  moral 
must  shift  for  itself;  that  depended  on  what, 
beneath  consciousness,  I  was — the  justice  and 
sympathy,  the  comprehension,  of  my  being. 

A  slide  opened  mysteriously  on  the  blank 
darkness  before  me,  a  bolt  was  drawn ;  and  im- 
mediately I  had  left  the  street  for  a  little  en- 
tresol filled  with  lamplight,  the  breath  of 
scented  powder,  and  the  notes  of  a  piano 
played  by  a  girl  whose  cigarette  burned  furi- 
ously on  the  scarred  ebonized  top  of  the  in- 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
strument.  She  half  turned,  scanning  me  in- 
differently, and  went  on  with  her  unelaborate 
music.  The  woman  who  had  admitted  me, 
a  figure  whose  instant  scrutiny  resembled  the 
unsparing  accuracy  of  a  photograph  by  flash- 
light, after  a  polite  greeting,  ignored  me  abso- 
lutely, and  I  was  left  to  follow  my  fancy. 

This  led  to  the  patio,  larger  and  more  en- 
trancing than  any  I  had  before  seen;  it  was 
paved  in  blocks  of  marble,  and  the  white  walls, 
warmly  and  fully  illuminated,  made  a  sharp 
contrast  with  the  night,  the  sky  and  stars, 
above.  There  was  a  tree  growing  at  one  side ; 
what  it  was  I  didn't  know,  but  it  hung  large 
intensely  green  leaves  into  the  light  before 
climbing  to  obscurity.  A  great  many  people, 
it  seemed  to  me,  were  present;  and,  as  I  found 
a  seat  on  an  ornamental  iron  bench,  the  for- 
mality of  a  civil  greeting  was  scrupulously  ob- 
served. The  company  was,  to  every  outer  re- 
gard, decorous  to  the  point  of  stiffness.  Op- 
posite, two  officers  of  the  Spanish  navy,  in  im- 
maculate white  with  gilt  epaulettes,  were 
drinking  naranjadas  and  conversing  with  two 
[181] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
girls  who  nodded  in  appropriate  sympathy. 
Farther  on,  a  Cuban  exquisite,  his  hands,  in 
spite  of  the  heat,  cased  in  lavender  grey  gloves, 
was  staring  fixedly  at  the  shining  toes  of  his 
shoes.  Others — yes,  Rogelio  in  his  youth— 
their  hair  faultlessly  glossy,  were  more  ani- 
mated; their  gestures  and  voices  rose  irrepres- 
sibly  and  sank  in  confidences  to  ears  close  be- 
side them. 

A  row  of  doors,  I  then  saw,  filled  one  side  of 
the  patio,  the  interiors  closed  by  swinging 
slatted  screens ;  the  wall  at  my  back  was  blank, 
an  exit  at  the  rear,  while  on  the  right  was  the 
entrance.  Scattered  about,  with  the  benches 
and  chairs,  small  tables  held  a  variety  of 
glasses  and  drinks  .  .  .  the  entire  atmosphere 
was  pervaded,  characterized,  by  utter  ease. 
That  was,  to  me,  the  most  notable  of  the  ef- 
fects of  that  enclosure — an  amazing  freedom 
from  superficial  obligations,  from  the  burden- 
some conventions  which,  so  largely  a  part  of 
existence,  had  come  to  be  accepted  either  sub- 
consciously or  as  a  necessary  evil.  I  realized 
for  the  first  time  the  inanity  of  imposed  pre- 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
tences,  the  thick,  the  suffocating  armor  of  triv- 
iality that  criminally  and  ludicrously  muffled 
life. 

There  were  present,  of  course,  all  the  poses 
of  humanity,  and  a  great  many  of  its  conven- 
tions; the  girls  were  not  hippogriffs,  but  girls 
• — timid,  bold,  religious,  skeptical,  feminine, 
sentimental,  happy  and  unhappy,  hopeful  and 
hopeless.  Yet,  in  contradiction  to  this,  the  air 
offered  a  complete  release  from  a  thousand 
small  irritating  pressures.  It  came,  partly, 
from  the  sense  that  here  I  was  outside  the  or- 
der, the  legality,  the  explicit  purpose,  of  the 
forces  organizing  the  world.  I  had  stepped, 
as  it  were,  from  time,  immediacy,  to  timeless- 
ness.  The  patio  into  which  I  was  shut  might 
have  been  on  that  earth  the  ancients  conceived 
of  as  round  and  flat  as  a  plate.  No  discov- 
ery, no  wisdom  accumulated  by  centuries  and 
supreme  sacrifices,  had  any  bearing,  any  im- 
portance, in  my  circumstances  now.  I  was 
contemporaneous  with  the  lives  precariously 
spent  between  the  ebb  and  flood  of  the  ice 
ages.  The  animals  knew  as  much.  But  if  I 

[183] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
had  nothing  to  gain  from  all  that  was  succes- 
sively admirable,  nothing  was  lost  that  had 
been  implicit  in  the  beginning,  nothing  at  the 
last  end  would  be  changed. 

i 

The  conversation  fluctuated  about  me,  the 
glasses  were  carried  away  and  brought  back 
refilled ;  the  smoke  of  cigars  and  cigarettes 
floated  tranquilly  up  and  was  lost  above  the 
illumination,  and  I  completely  dropped  the 
embarrassment  which  came  from  an  uncer- 
tainty in  such  minor  customs  as  existed.  I 
was,  in  fact,  extremely  comfortable  when  I  un- 
derstood that  I  was  left  entirely  to  my  own 
desires.  These  included  the  offer,  in  clumsy 
Spanish,  of  a  general  order  of  drinks;  and 
there  was  a  revival  of  polite  phrases.  Not  all, 
by  a  half,  accepted ;  the  others  bowed,  gravely 
or  cheerfully;  and  I  retired  again  to  my  spec- 
ulations. 

These  were  mainly  gathered  about  the  re- 
gret that  the  scene  before  me  was  practically 
forbidden  to  American  novels.  It  had,  in  re- 
ality, no  place  in  the  United  States,  and,  there- 
fore, could  claim  no  legitimate  page  in  Amer- 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
ican  literature.  There,  anyhow,  it  could  be 
said  for  public  morals,  such  things  were  nearly 
all  that  the  word  vice  implied.  What,  ex- 
actly, I  was  lamenting,  was  the  old  fundamen- 
tal lack  of  candor  in  the  American  attitude. 
This,  beyond  question,  proceeded  from  the 
people  themselves,  and  not  from  commissions ; 
an  enormous  majority,  except  for  that  national 
whispered  currency  of  obscenity,  was  prudish 
beyond  reclamation.  For  them,  it  was  prob- 
able, the  innocence  of  the  body  had  been 
branded  eternally.  And  I  was  neither  a 
martyr  nor  a  reformer.  The  loss  to  me  was 
considerable — as  it  was,  dealing  with  only  the 
outer  garments  of  fact,  I  had  been  accused  of 
lasciviousness  or  something  of  the  kind — and  I 
envied  the  French  the  cool  logic  of  their  men- 
tality, the  cultivation  of  the  French  audience. 
My  mind  reverted  to  Jurgen,  the  remark- 
able narrative  of  James  Cabell's,  that  had  been 
suppressed ;  a  summary  act  of  disturbing  irony. 
For  Mr.  Cabell  had  spent  a  life,  practically, 
reaching  from  the  imagination  of  childhood  to 
the  performance  of  maturity,  in  a  mental  pre- 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
occupation  with  disembodied  purity.  He  had 
set  up,  in  his  heart  and  in  his  books,  the  high 
altar  of  mediaeval  Platonism — an  image  of  de- 
sire never  to  be  clasped,  reached,  from  earth; 
a  consolation,  really,  for  the  earth-bound.  But 
that,  in  the  mind,  the  characteristic  mind,  of 
America,  had  not  had  the  weight,  the  value,  of 
a  dandelion's  gossamer  seed.  It  was,  defi- 
nitely, a  land  that  cared  nothing  for  literature, 
the  casting  of  transient  life  into  the  perma- 
nence of  beautiful  form.  As  the  world  ad- 
vanced in  years,  the  general  importance  of 
literature,  it  seemed  to  me,  diminished;  the 
truth  was  that  people  didn't  care  for  it. 


*     * 


The  ladies  of  pleasure — the  merest  identi- 
fying phrase,  since,  in  the  first  place,  they  were 
practically  all  at  the  age  of  immaturity — were 
dressed  in  evening  satins,  cut  generally  with 
an  effective  simplicity,  or  the  lacy  whiteness 
still  better  adapted  to  the  young  person.  In 
the  tropical  patio  with  its  canopy  of  broad 
green  leaves  and  night,  the  marble  pavement 
[i  86] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
and  alabaster  walls,  they  were  brilliantly  ef- 
fective; it  was  only  after  an  extended  regard, 
carefully  casual,  that  I  appreciated  the  amaz- 
ing diversity  of  their  individuality,  the  gamut 
of  bloods  run.  There  were  no  Anglo-Saxons 
—they  were  faithful  to  the  traditions  of  their 
latitude — and  there  was  no  positive  Africa; 
but  there  was  Africa  in  faint  dilutions,  in  at- 
tenuations traced  from  lands  remote  as  Tar- 
tary: 

There  was,  for  example,  a  girl  so  blanched 
that  I  saw  she  wasn't  white  at  all ;  her  face, 
even  without  its  drenching  of  powder,  was  the 
color  of  the  rice-paper  cigarette  she  smoked, 
walking  indolently  by;  and  her  hair  was  a 
blazing  mass  of  undyed  red.  Her  features, 
her  nose,  and  the  pinched  blue  -corners  of  her 
eyes,  the  crinkling  tendency  of  her  piled  hair 
—its  authenticity  unmistakable  in  a  strong 
vivid  sheen — showed  the  secret  that  lay  back 
of  her  exotic  appalling  splendor.  Her  pro- 
gress across  the  patio  was  a  slender  undulation, 
and  her  gaze  was  fixed,  her  attention  lost,  in  an 
abstraction  to  which  there  was  no  key.  No 

[•87] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
imagination  could  have  pictured  such  a  strik- 
ing figure  nor  placed  her  so  exactly  in  the  ulti- 
mate setting: 

Here  she  was  artificial — there  were  long  jet 
ear-rings  against  her  neck — and  savage.  In 
her  silk  stocking,  I  had  every  reason  to  sus- 
pect, there  was  a  knife's  thin  steel  leaf;  but 
who  could  predict  the  emotions,  no — instincts, 
to  which  it  was  servant?  Who,  trivial  with 
the  trivialities  of  to-day,  could  foretell,  trifling 
with  her,  what  incentive  might  drive  the  steel 
deep  up  under  his  arm?  Hers  would  be  a 
dreadful  face  to  see,  in  its  flaming  corona,  in 
the  last  agonizing  wrench  of  consciousness. 

Seated,  and  talking  earnestly  to  a  Cuban  with 
worried  eyes,  was  a  small  round  brown  girl  in 
candy  green,  whose  feet  in  childish  kid  slip- 
pers and  soft  hands  bore  an  expression  of  flaw- 
less innocence.  Clasped  above  an  elbow  was 
an  enamelled  gold  band,  such  as  youth  no 
longer  wore,  with  a  hinge  and  fine  gold  chain 
securing  the  lock.  She  touched  it  once, 
absent-mindedly,  and  I  wondered  what  was  its 
potency  of  association;  when,  at  a  turn  of  her 

[I! 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
wri§t,  she  drained  a  glass  of  brandy,  an  act 
of  revealing  incongruity.  She  was,  I  recog- 
nized from  her  speech,  Spanish,  from  the 
Peninsula;  and  another,  who  told  me  that  her 
city  was  Bilbao,  dispassionately,  for  a  little, 
occupied  my  bench.  Bilbao,  she  explained, 
was  not  beautiful  ...  a  place  of  industry  and 
money.  Nor  was  she  charming,  she  was  too 
harsh;  but  her  personality  had  an  unmistak- 
able national  flavor,  like  that  of  Castell  de 
Remey  wine.  I  was  relieved  when  she  rose 
abruptly  and  disappeared  into  the  entresol, 
where  the  piano  was  still  being  intermittently 
played. 

The  screen  door  to  a  room  swung  open,  and 
a  large  rosy  creature,  negligent  and  sleepy, 
appeared  momentarily,  gazing  with  a  yawn, 
a  flash  of  faultless  teeth,  over  the  assemblage. 
She  was  without  a  dress,  but  her  hair  was  in- 
tricately up,  and  a  froth  of  underclothes  with 
knots  of  canary  yellow  ribbons  and  yellow 
clocked  stockings  made  a  surprising  fore- 
ground for  the  painfully  realistic  Crucifixion 
hanging  on  the  wall  within.  The  cross  was 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
ebony  and  the  figure  in  a  silver-like  metal,  the 
Passion  portrayed  by  a  gaunt  rigidity  of  suf- 
fering. The  screen  closed  on  the  tableau  of 
contrast,  and  the  patio  resumed  its  appearance 
of  a  vaguely  distorted  formal  occasion. 

Whatever  my  feelings  should  have  been, 
there  was  no  doubt  that — if  for  the  extreme 
pictorial  quality  alone — my  interest  was  highly 
engaged.  My  interest  and  not  my  indigna- 
tions! I  was  not,  it  must  be  admitted,  com- 
mendably  outraged,  or  filled  with  the  impulse 
to  rescue,  to  save,  anyone,  however  young. 
I  seriously  questioned  my  ability  to  offer  sal- 
vation, since  I  lacked  the  distinctly  sustaining 
conviction  of  superiority;  I  couldn't,  offhand, 
guarantee  anything.  Suppose,  for  argument, 
I  took  one — the  youngest — and  haled  her 
away  from  her  deplorable  situation:  what  was 
open  to  her,  to  us?  Would  she  have  pre- 
ferred, stayed  for  an  hour  in,  any  of  the  tepid 
conventional  Magdalen  homes,  if  there  were 
such  establishments  in  Havana? 

I    had    a    vision    of    appearing   with    her 
wrapped  in  a  frivolous  cloak,  before  the  ex- 
[190] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
perienced  wisdom  of  the  Inglaterra  manager, 
in  the  corridor  of  American  salesmen,  among 
the  wives  of  the  vice-presidents  of  steamship 
companies,  and  explaining  that  I  was  deliver- 
ing my  companion  from  the  wage  of  death.  I 
should  have  been,  and  very  properly,  put 
under  restraint  and  Dr.  Laine  hurriedly  sum- 
moned. In  all  probability,  and  with  the  ut- 
most discretion,  they'd  have  sent  Pilar,  or 
Manuelita,  back  to  the  patio  with  the  doors, 
explaining  to  her  that  I  was  demented. 

There  were,  undoubtedly,  better  places  for 
girls  of  fifteen,  and  they  would  have  been  the 
first  to  choose  them  if  a  choice  had  been  pos- 
sible— some  would  have  been  wives  and  some 
opera  singers  and  all,  with  wishing  so  free, 
uncommonly  beautiful.  I  had  an  idea  that  a 
number  of  them  would  have  gone  no  further 
than  the  last,  and,  as  well  they  might,  left 
the  rest  to  chance.  But  their  ideas  of  beauty 
must  have  been  stupid  compared  to  what  they 
actually  possessed. 

There  was  a  girl  with  a  trace  of  Chinese  in 
the  flattened  oval  of  her  countenance,  and 

[191] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
heavy  black  hair,  as  severe  as  a  metal  casing, 
redolent  with  fascination.  She  sat  withdrawn 
from  the  others  with  her  hands  clasped  in  the 
lap  of  a  fine  white  dress.  She  was  delicate, 
but  not  thin,  though  her  neck  was  so  slender 
that  the  weight  of  her  head  seemed  bent  a 
little  forward.  I  had  never  before  seen  skin 
so  faintly  and  evenly  golden;  there  wasn't  a 
flush,  a  differently  shaded  surface,  anywhere 
visible.  A  sultry  air  hung  about  her  mouth, 
the  under  lip  brushed  with  carmine.  Her 
eyes,  lowered  and  almost  shut,  were  large,  and 
their  lids  were  as  smooth  as  ivory.  But  she 
wasn't,  otherwise,  suggestive  of  that;  she  more 
nearly  resembled  the  magic  glow  of  an  apple 
of  Hesperides. 

If  I  had  encountered  her  twenty  years  ear- 
lier, my  experience  would  have  been  richer  by 
a  glimpse  of  her  involved  image-like  charm. 
She  was,  conceivably,  to  the  superficial  West, 
dull:   it  was   evident  that  she   almost  never 
talked — the  girls  about  were  not  her  friends 
—but  she  had  qualities,  aspects,  infinitely  pref- 
erable to  a  flow  of  words.     I  should  have 
[192] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
asked  of  her  hardly  more  than,  at  present,  she 
was,  sitting  quite  a  distance  from  me  and  fun- 
damentally unaware  of  my  existence.  I  de- 
bated whether  she  would  be  more  attractive 
in  the  sleeve  coat  and  jade  pins  of  China  or  in 
her  virginal  white  muslin.  .  .  .  That  now  was 
the  circumference  of  my  duty  toward  her — to 
put  her  in  such  colors,  such  surroundings,  as 
would  infinitely  multiply  her  mystery. 

It  was,  I  realized,  time  for  me  to  leave — I 
wasn't  Rogelio  Mola  in  his  youth — and  I  paid 
the  inconsequential  price  of  the  drinks  I  had 
ordered.  There  were  adieux,  as  civil  and  im- 
personal as  my  welcome,  and  the  door  to  the 
street  was  opened  to  let  me,  together  with  a 
breath  of  the  scented  powder,  out.  The 
arcade  before  me  sounded  for  a  moment  with 
the  smooth  falling  of  a  latch,  and  then  all  trace 
of  the  near  presence  of  so  much  lightness  was 
obliterated.  In  memory  it  seemed  slightly 
unreal,  a  dangerous  fantasy  of  murmurs  and 
subdued,  knife-like  passions — the  bleached 
soul  of  Africa  with  massed  red  hair;  a  fri- 
volity of  yellow  ribbons  against  a  silver  tor- 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
mented  Christ;  the  inertia  of  the  East  in  a 
heavy-eyed  child ;  but,  to  balance  this,  I  re- 
membered the  girl,  like  a  harsh  native  wine, 
from  Balbao,  an  industrial  city  and  very  rich: 
she  restored  to  the  scene  its  ordinary  normal 
reality. 


*     * 


The  high  empty  austerity  of  my  room  en- 
veloped me  in  a  happy  tranquillity;  its  effect 
was  exactly  that  of  increasing  age,  substituting 
for  the  violent  contrasts  of  life  an  impersonal 
spacious  whiteness.  I  very  placidly  prepared 
for  the  cool  fresh  linen  of  my  bed,  my  mind 
filled  with  fresh  cool  thoughts.  More  defi- 
nitely than  ever  before  I  was  accepting  and 
accommodating  myself  to  the  passage  of  time. 
I  was  not  only  reconciled  to  having  left  forty 
forever  behind,  but  I  welcomed  a  release  from 
the  earlier  struggles  of  resentment  and  desire. 
The  joys  of  youth,  or  anyhow  in  my  case,  had 
been  out  of  proportion  to  their  penalties:  I 
had  failed  at  school,  at  the  academies  of  art, 
and,  more  conspicuously  still,  as  a  citizen.  I 
was  even  incapable  of  supporting  myself,  a 
[194] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
task  so  easy  that  it  was  successfully  performed 
by  three  quarters  of  the  fools  on  earth. 

The  failure  as  a  painter  was  serious,  but  I 
had  never  had  the  least  interest  in  those  quali- 
ties included  in  the  term  a  good  citizen.  I 
knew  nothing  about  the  government  of  the 
United  States,  and  made  no  effort  to  find  out; 
as  an  abstraction  it  had  reality  for  me,  but  as 
a  reality  no  substance.  The  priceless  right  of 
vote  I  neglected  for  whoever  it  was  in  the 
Republican  machine  that  regularly  discharged 
that  responsibility  for  me.  All  that  interested 
me,  that  I  deeply  cared  for,  was  first  the  dis- 
posal of  paint  on  stretched  canvas  and  then  the 
arrangement  of  words  with  a  probable  mean- 
ing and  possible  beauty. 

An  extremely  bad  period,  that,  when  I  tried 
to  write  without  knowledge  or  support,  reach- 
ing from  twenty  until  well  after  thirty,  when 
I  managed  to  sell  a  scrap  of  prose.  From  then 
until  forty  the  time  had  gone  in  a  flash,  a 
scratching  of  the  pen :  it  seemed  incredible  that 
the  seven  books  on  a  shelf  bearing  my  name 
had  been  the  result  of  so  brief,  so  immaterial, 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
a  time.  Now,  stranger  still,  I  was  in  Cuba, 
gazing  peacefully  into  the  dim  expensive  space 
of  a  room  in  the  Hotel  Inglaterra,  congratu- 
lating myself  on  the  loss,  the  positive  lapse, 
of  what  was  called  men's  most  valuable  pos- 
session. 

No  better  place  for  the  trying  of  my  sin- 
cerity than  Havana  existed;  no  other  city  in 
the  world  could  so  perfectly  create  the  illu- 
sion of  complete  irresponsibility,  of  happiness 
followed  for  its  own  sake,  as  an  end,  or  as  the 
means  of  forgetfulness.  Its  gala  walls  and 
plazas  and  promenades,  its  alternating  sparkle 
and  languor,  like  flags  whipping  in  the  wind  or 
drooping  about  their  staffs,  always  conveyed 
a  spirit  of  holiday  and  of  a  whole  absence  of 
splenetic  censure.  At  the  bottom  of  this  the 
climate,  eternally  sunny,  with  close  vivid  days 
and  nights  stirring  with  a  breeze  through  the 
galleries,  concentrated  the  mind  and  body  on 
pleasure. 

Night  had  always  been  the  time  for  gaiety, 
when  the  practical  was  veiled  in  shade;  and 
Havana  responded  with  an  inimitable  grace 


I 

San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
to  the  stars.  It  was  constructed  for  night,  like 
a  lunar  park  of  marble  and  palms  and  open 
flooding  radiance;  with,  against  that,  streets 
packed  with  darkness  and  doors  of  mystery  to 
which  clung  the  faint  breath  of  patchouli. 
The  air  was  instinct  with  seduction,  faintly 
touched  by  the  pungency  of  Ron  Bacardi  and 
limes,  and  bland  with  the  vapors  of  delightful 
cigars.  The  clothes,  too — the  white  linens 
and  flannels  and  silks  of  the  men;  the  ruffled 
dresses  on  the  balconies,  the  flowery  laces,  like 
white  carnations,  in  the  automobiles;  the  wide 
hats  of  Paris  and  the  satin  slippers  tied  about 
the  ankles,  with  preposterous  heels;  the  flut- 
tering fans — all,  all  were  in  the  key  of  light 
sharp  emotion,  of  challenge  and  invitation  and 
surrender. 

Yes,  any  strictness  of  conduct  in  Havana, 
any  philosophy  in  the  face  of  that  charm,  was 
unaffected  beyond  dispute.  I  had  been,  in  a 
farther  development  of  this,  tacitly  left  to  my 
own  devices  and  thoughts,  as  if  there  were  a 
general  perception  of  my  remoteness  from  the 
affair  in  hand.  I  was  suffered  to  ccme  and  go 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
without  notice;  no  one,  much,  spoke  to  me; 
even  those  not  unaware  of  the  possibility  of  a 
book,  of  San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana,  in  which 
their  city  would  find  praise,  were  hardly 
stirred  to  interest.  The  moment  to  go  to  Ha- 
vana was  youth,  the  moment  for  masked  balls 
and  infidelity  and  champagne:  its  potency  for 
me  lay  in  its  investment  of  memories;  I  re- 
garded it  as  a  spectacle  set  in  the  tropics.  I 
was  an  onlooker  and  not  a  participant.  But  I 
had,  as  I  have  shown,  no  regret;  I  had  become 
reconciled  not  only  to  the  fleetness  of  time,  but 
equally  to  the  fact  that  my  role  was  necessarily 
a  spectator's.  Hour  after  hour,  year  after 
year,  I  sat  writing  at  the  low  window  which 
looked  out  over  my  green  terrace  and  clipped 
hedge,  to  the  road,  to  life,  beyond. 

Above  everything,  then,  I  was  satisfied  with 
the  Havana  I  knew.  From  the  standpoint  of 
actuality  my  comprehension  was  limited — I 
was  familiar  with  only  a  certain  narrow  part 
of  the  city,  for  it  was  my  habit  to  go  back  to 
what  I  had  found  rather  than  discover  the  new 
—perhaps  ten  streets  and  a  handful  of  houses, 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
parks,  and  cafes.  Too  much  to  get  into  a 
score  of  books.  What  I  had  lost,  I  thought 
further — if,  indeed,  I  had  ever  possessed  it- 
was  a  warm  personal  contact  such  as  I  should 
have  had  dancing  with  a  lovely  girl.  I  never 
danced,  but  remained  outside,  philosophically, 
gazing  at  the  long  bright  whirling  rectangles. 
At  the  Inglaterra  there  were  many  men 
older  than  myself  who  danced  persistently  and 
had  the  warmest  sorts  of  contacts;  they  too, 
wore  flowers  in  their  coats,  but  aggressive  and 
not  reminiscent  blooms.  They  formed  most 
of  the  element  of  foreign  gaiety;  there  wasn't 
much  youth  among  them,  but  I  didn't  envy 
them  in  the  slightest.  They  were,  if  possible, 
more  absurd  than  the  women  unmindful  of 
thickening  waists  and  dulled  eyes.  Their 
ardor  was  febrile  and  their  power  money;  and 
every  time  they  escorted  with  a  quickened  step 
their  charmers  past  young  dark  men,  the 
charmers  glanced  back  appealingly.  It  was 
different  with  the  Cubans,  who  regarded  such 
things  more  naturally,  and  did  not,  practically, 
in  consequence,  get  drunk. 

[199] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
The  noise  from  San  Rafael  Street  never 
slackened,  the  clamor  of  the  mule-drivers  and 
the  emptying  cans  of  refuse  took  the  place  of 
the  motor  signals ;  the  slats  of  my  lowered  shut- 
ters showed  streaks  of  dawn.  I  turned  once, 
it  appeared,  and  the  room  was  filled  with  in- 
direct sunlight,  the  hands  of  my  watch  were 
at  ten.  It  was  eleven  before  I  was  dressed, 
with  the  morning  cup  of  black  coffee  empty 
on  a  table ;  at  twelve  I  had  breakfast,  and  until 
five  I  idly  read.  The  evening  as  well  was  idle 
—a  thoroughly  wasted  day,  judged  by  obvi- 
ous and  active  standards.  I  thought,  with  no 
impulse  to  return,  of  the  house  near  the 
Arsenal,  which  had,  in  effect,  been  open  for 
centuries  and  which,  unless  life  were  purified, 
would  never  close.  The  purity  I  meant  was 
not  a  limitation  of  passion,  but  its  release  from 
obscene  confines.  It  didn't  matter  what  I 
meant  and,  again,  I  was  becoming  too  serious 
...  or  not  serious  about  the  correct  things. 
There  was  perpetually  the  danger  of  being 
overtaken,  in  spite  of  my  impetuous  early 
flight,  by  the  influences,  the  promptings,  of 
[200] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
my  heredity  and  strong  first  associations. 
What  an  amazing  climax  to  my  records  of 
chiffon  textures  and  moods  of  chiffon  that 
would  be :  shouting  the  creed  of  a  bitter  Scots 
induration  from  the  informal  pulpits  of  the 
streets!  Or  I  might  publish,  to  the  dismay  of 
every  one  intimately  concerned,  a  denuncia- 
tory sermonizing  book.  But  what  the  subject 
was  wouldn't  matter,  as  it  had  not  mattered 
with  Jeremy  Taylor,  if  it  were  written  with 
sufficient  beauty.  Disagreeable  books,  too,  in 
spite  of  the  accepted  contrary  belief,  were 
always  very  highly  esteemed. 


It  was  easy  enough  to  account  for  Jeremy 
Taylor  by  the  vague  generalization  of  beauty, 
and  I  forced  myself  to  a  closer  scrutiny  of  that 
term  and  my  meaning.  The  words  beauty 
and  love,  and  a  dozen  others,  like  old  shoes, 
had  grown  so  shapeless  through  long  mis- 
wear  that  they  would  stay  on  no  foot.  I  tried 
to  isolate  some  quality  indisputably  recogniz- 
able as  beautiful  and  hit,  to  my  surprise,  on 
[201] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
intellectual  courage.  The  thought  of  an  un- 
deviating  mental  integrity  was  as  exhilarating 
as  the  crash  of  massed  marching  bands. 
Then,  searching  for  another  example,  I  re- 
called August  nights  at  Dower  House,  with  the 
moonlight  lying  like  water  between  the  black 
shadows  of  the  trees  on  the  lawn.  There  was 
a  harsh  interwoven  shrilling  of  locusts  and 
the  echo — almost  the  feel  rather  than  the  sound 
— of  thunder  below  the  horizon.  This,  too, 
stirred  me  profoundly,  brought  about  the  glow 
transmutable  into  creative  effort. 

Another  excursion  found  nothing  but  a  boy 
and  a  girl,  any  boy  and  any  girl,  fired  by  shy 
uncomplicated  passion.  ...  A  mental,  a 
visual,  and  a  natural  incentive,  each  with  the 
same  effect,  the  identical  pinching  of  the  heart 
and  thrust  to  a  common  hidden  center.  What 
had  they  each  alike?  Perhaps  it  was  this: 
that  they  were  the  three  great  facts  of  exist- 
ence, the  primary  earth,  the  act  of  creation, 
and  the  crowning  dignity,  the  superiority  of 
men  who,  somehow,  had  transvalued  the  sum 
of  their  awarded  clay.  Somehow!  I  had  no 
[202] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
intention  of  examining  that.     The  fact  was, 
for  me,  enough. 

There  was,  however,  another  phase  of 
beauty  still,  one  peculiarly  the  property  of 
novelists,  which  had  to  do  not  with  life  at 
all,  but  with  death,  with  vain  longing  and 
memories  and  failure.  All  the  novels  which 
seemed  to  me  of  the  first  rank  were  con- 
structed from  these  latter  qualities;  and  while 
painting  and  music  and  lyrical  poetry  were 
affirmative,  the  novel  was  negative,  built, 
where  it  was  great,  from  great  indignations. 
Yet,  while  this  was  obvious  truth,  it  failed 
to  include  or  satisfy  me;  for  there  were 
many  passages  not  recognizable  as  great 
in  the  broadest  sense,  both  in  literature 
and  life,  that  filled  me  with  supreme 
pleasure — there  were  pages  of  Turgenev  spun 
out  of  the  fragile  melancholy  of  a  girl,  a  girl 
with  a  soul  in  dusk,  far  more  enthralling  than, 
for  example,  Thomas  Hardy.  It  may  have 
been  that  there  was  the  perception  of  a  simili- 
tude between  Turgenev's  figure  and  myself; 
certainly  I  was  closer  to  her  mood,  her  disease 
[203] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
of  modernity,  than  to  a  sheep  herder;  and 
there  was  a  possibility,  for  my  own  support, 
that  the  finest-drawn  sensibilities,  not  regarded 
as  emotions  in  the  grand  key,  would  turn  out 
to  be  our  most  highly  justified  preoccupation. 

I  was,  at  present,  in  Havana,  submerged  in 
its  fascination,  and  when  I  came  to  write  about 
it  there  would  not  be  lacking  those  to  say  that 
I  had  been  better  occupied  with  simpler 
things.  Hugh  Walpole  had  warned  me  of 
the  danger,  to  me,  of  parquetry  and  vermilion 
Chinese  Chippendale;  and  I  was  certain  that 
he  would  speak  to  me  again  in  the  same  tone 
about  idling  in  a  mid-Victorian  Pompeii,  cele- 
brating drink  and  marble  touched  by  the  gil- 
der's brush  of  late  afternoon.  Perhaps  Wal- 
pole— and  Henry  Mencken's  keen  friendly 
discernment — was  right;  but,  damn  it,  my  ex- 
perience was  deficient  in  material  essentials;  I 
was  dangerously  ignorant  of  current  reality, 
and  I  doubted  if  my  style  was  a  suitable  in- 
strument for  rugged  facts. 

What  remained  for  me,  an  accomplishment 
spacious  enough  for  anyone,  was  the  effort  to 
[204] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
realize  that  sharp  sense  of  beauty  which  came 
from  a  firm  delicate  consciousness  of  certain 
high  pretensions,  valors,  maintained  in  the  face 
of  imminent  destruction.  And  in  that  cate- 
gory none  was  sharper  than  the  charm  of  a 
woman,  so  soon  to  perish,  in  a  vanity  of  array 
as  momentary  and  iridescent  as  a  May-fly. 
The  thought  of  such  a  woman,  the  essence,  the 
distillation,  of  an  art  of  life  superimposed  on 
sheer  economy,  was  more  moving  to  me  than 
the  most  heroic  maternity.  I  couldn't  get  it 
into  my  head  that  loveliness,  which  had  a  trick 
of  staying  in  the  mind  at  points  of  death  when 
all  service  was  forgotten,  was  rightly  con- 
sidered to  be  of  less  importance  than  the  sweat 
of  some  kitchen  drudge. 

The  setting  of  a  woman  in  a  dress  by 
Cheruit;  a  part  of  the  bravery  of  fragile  soft 
paste  Lowestoft  china  and  square  emeralds 
that  would  feed  a  starving  village,  on  fingers 
that  had  done  no  more  than  wave  a  fan ;  the  fan 
itself,  on  gold  and  ivory  with  tasselled  silk— 
the  things  to  which  the  longing  of  men,  ele- 
vated a  degree  above  hard  circumstances, 
[205] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
turned — were  of  equal  weight  with  the  whole; 
for  it  was  not  what  the  woman  had  in  common 
with  a  rabbit  that  was  important,  but  her  dif- 
ference. On  one  hand  that  difference  was 
moral,  but  on  the  other  aBSthetic;  and  I  had 
been  absorbed  by  the  latter. 

This,  however  wide  apart  it  may  seem,  was 
closely  bound  to  my  presence  in  Havana,  to 
my  delight  and  purpose  there.  It  was  nothing 
more  than  a  statement,  a  development,  if  not 
a  final  vindication,  of  my  instant  sense  of 
pleasure  and  familiarity — a  place  already 
alive  in  my  imagination.  My  special  diffi- 
culty was  the  casting  of  it  into  a  recogniz- 
able, adequate  medium.  There,  in  the  plait- 
ing of  cobwebs  instead  of  hemp  rope,  I  partic- 
ularly invited  disaster.  It  wasn't  necessary 
that  I  should  sustain  anyone,  but  only  that 
I  should  spread  the  illusion  of  the  buried  asso- 
ciations and  image  of  a  brain.  That,  if  it 
were  true,  I  held,  would  be  beauty. 

Here,  at  least,  I  was  serious  about  the  cor- 
rect things,  direct  rather  than  conventional; 
all  that  mattered  was  the  spreading  of  the  il- 
[206] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
lusion,  the  spectacle  of  what  part  of  Havana  I 
did  know  interpreted,  realized,  not  in  the 
spirit  of  an  architectural  plan,  but  as  sentient 
with  reflected  emotions.  Otherwise  the  most 
weighty  charges  against  me  were  absolutely 
justified.  If  I  couldn't  make  Havana  respond 
in  the  key  of  my  intrinsic  feelings,  if  I  had  no 
authentic  feeling  with  which  to  invest  it,  my 
book,  almost  all  my  books,  were  a  weariness 
and  a  mistake. 

Novels  of  indignation  or  of  melancholy, 
of  a  longing  for  the  continuity  of  individual 
passion  confronted  with  the  inevitable — it  was 
that,  the  perishability  of  all  that  was  desirable, 
which  gave  to  small  things,  a  flower  in  the 
hair,  their  importance  as  symbols.  The  love 
story,  once  the  exclusive  province  of  fiction, 
had  disappeared;  it  was  now  practically  im- 
possible for  the  slightest  talent  to  fill  a  book 
in  that  manner.  The  romantic  figment,  like 
a  confection  of  spun  sugar  with  a  sprig  of  arti- 
ficial orange  blossoms,  had  been  discarded ;  the 
beauty  of  love,  it  had  been  discovered,  wasn't 
the  possession  of  a  particular  heart,  but  the 
[207] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
tenderness,  the  pity,  that  came  from  the  reali- 
zation of  its  inescapable  loss.  No  man  could 
love  a  woman,  no  woman  could  love  a  man, 
who  was  to  live  forever;  a  thousand  years 
would  be  an  insuperable  burden.  The  higher 
a  cultivation,  a  delight,  reached,  the  more 
tragic  was  its  breaking  by  death ;  the  greater 
knowledge  a  mind  held,  the  more  humiliating 
was  the  illimitable  ignorance,  the  profound 
night  pressing  in  upon  every  feeble  and  tem- 
porary human  lamp. 

Yes,  the  novels,  the  books  I  wanted  to  write, 
were  composed,  now,  not  so  much  from  among 
the  brasses,  the  tympani,  as  from  the  violins. 
The  great  majority,  like  the  great  books,  were 
dedicated  to  the  primary  chords;  but  my 
reaching  the  former  had  been  always  hope- 
less. I  didn't  mind  this,  for  I  told  myself 
that,  while  the  structure  of  approbation  I  had 
gathered  was  comparatively  modest,  its  stones 
and  masonry  were  admirable;  it  was,  if  not  a 
mansion,  a  gratifying  cottage  firmly  set  on 
earth — what  was  in  England  called,  I  believe, 
a  freehold.  It  was  mine,  and  there  was  no 

[208] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
lease  dependent  on  the  good  will — or  on  my 
subserviency — of  any  landlord. 


Most  of  this  went  through  my  mind  as  I  sat 
looking  at  my  trunk,  open  on  end  in  an  alcove 
near  the  door,  for  I  was  gathering  my  clothes 
and  thoughts  in  preparation  for  leaving  Ha- 
vana. One  thing  only  that  I  wished  to  see 
now  remained — the  danzon  at  the  National 
Theatre.  I  kept  out  a  dark  suit,  one  that 
would  be  inconspicuous  in  a  lower  spectator's 
box;  for  I  had  been  told  that  it  was  desirable 
to  avoid  unnecessary  attention.  There  was, 
briefly,  an  element  of  danger.  This  I  doubted 
—I  had  heard  the  same  thing  so  often  before 
without  subsequent  justification — but  I  could 
believe  it  possible  if  there  was  any  violent  dis- 
charge of  primitive  emotion.  Here  the  spirit 
of  Africa  burned  remote  and  pale,  but  it  was 
still  a  tropical  incomprehensible  flame. 

A  strip  of  red  carpet  led  from  the  outer 
steps,  across  a  large  promenade,  to  the  circular 
wall  of  the  theatre;  and  though  it  was  past 
[209] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
eleven,  the  ball  hadn't  yet  assumed  an  appear- 
ance of  life.  But  just  within  the  entrance  a 
negro  band  began  suddenly  to  play,  and  in  the 
music  alone  I  immediately  found  the  potent 
actuality  of  danger.  I  was  without  the  knowl- 
edge necessary  to  the  disentangling  of  its  ele- 
ments: there  were  fiddles  and  horns  and  un- 
natural kettle  drums,  and  an  instrument  made 
from  a  long  gourd,  with  a  parallel  scoring  for 
the  scrape  of  a  stick.  The  music  was  first  a 
shock,  then  an  exasperation  hardly  to  be  borne, 
but  finally  it  assumed  a  rhythm  maddening 
beyond  measure. 

It  was  Africa  and  something  else — notes 
taken  from  the  Moors,  splitting  quavers  of 
Iberian  traditions,  shakes  and  cadences  that 
might  have  been  the  agonized  voice  of  the  first 
Cubenos;  with  an  unspeakable  distortion,  a 
crazy  adaptation,  of  scraps  of  to-day.  There 
was  no  pause,  no  beginning  or  end,  in  its 
form ;  it  went  on  and  on  and  on,  rising  and  fall- 
ing, fluctuating,  now  in  a  harsh  droning  and 
then  a  blasting  discord — the  savage  naked  ut- 
[210] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
terance  of  a  naked  savage  lust;  it  was  a  music 
not  of  passion,  but  of  the  frenzy  of  rape. 
Nothing  like  it  would  have  been  possible  in 
writing,  allowed  in  painting;  only  music  was 
free  to  express,  to  sound,  such  depths. 
Nothing  but  music  could  have  conveyed  the 
inarticulate  cries  of  the  stirred  mire  that 
flooded  the  marble  space  of  the  opera  house. 
It  had  lost  the  simplicity  of  its  appropriate 
years,  the  spring  orgies  in  the  clearings  of 
early  forests;  time  had  made  it  hideously 
menacing,  cynical,  and  corrupt. 

At  an  aisle  to  the  boxes  within,  a  negro 
woman  with  a  wheedling  tainted  manner  tried 
to  sell  me  a  nosegay;  and  two  others,  younger 
and  pale,  their  faces  coated  with  rice  powder, 
went  past  in  dragging  satins.  They  were 
chattering  a  rapid  Spanish,  and  their  whitened 
cheeks  and  dead-looking  mat-like  hair,  their 
coffee-colored  breasts  and  white  kid  gloves, 
gave  them  an  extraordinary  incongruity; 
and  behind  them,  as  sharp  as  the  whisper  of 
their  skirts,  a  stinging  perfume  lingered. 

[211] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
Leaning  forward  on  the  rail  of  my  enclosure, 
I  gazed  down  over  the  floored  expanse  of  the 
auditorium : 

The  stage  was  set  with  the  backdrop  and 
wings  of  a  conventional  operatic  design — a 
scene  that  would  have  served  equally  A'ida  or 
La  Favorita:  it  towered,  like  a  faded  dream 
of  pseudo-classic  Havana,  into  the  theatrical 
heavens,  expanses  of  bistre  and  sepias  and 
charcoal  grey,  of  loggias  and  peristyles  and 
fountains;  while  in  close  order  about  its  three 
sides  were  ranged  stiff  chairs  in  a  vivid  live 
border  of  dancers.  They  were  of  every  color 
from  absolute  pallor,  the  opacity  of  plaster, 
to  utter  blackness.  The  men,  for  the  most 
part,  were  light,  some  purely  Spanish,  the 
negritos,  at  least  to  me,  conspicuous;  but  I 
could  see  rto  indisputably  white  women. 
There  was  a  girl  in  a  mantone  of  bright  con- 
trasting colors,  a  high  comb  and  a  rose  in  her 
hair,  about  whom  there  was  a  question.  How- 
ever, her  partner  was  one  of  the  few  full  ne- 
groes there;  and,  as  they  revolved  below  my 
box,  it  seemed  that  her  skin  had  a  leaden  cast. 
[212] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
The  danzon  itself  had,  at  first,  the  appear- 
ance of  a  sustained  gravity:  it  was  danced 
slowly,  in  very  small  space,  following  the 
music  with  arbitrary  reverses,  and  pausing. 
There  might  have  been,  to  the  superficial 
view,  a  restraint  almost  approaching  dignity 
had  the  dancers  been  other.  The  men,  with- 
out exception,  wore  their  stiff  straw  hats  and 
smoked  cigars  through  every  evolution;  and 
the  dresses,  the  dressing,  of  the  women  were 
fantastic:  a  small  wasted  girl,  dryly  black,  had 
copied  the  color  and  petals  of  a  sunflower.  As 
she  revolved,  her  skirt  flared  out  from  legs 
like  bent  bones,  and  a  hat  of  raw  yellow 
flapped  across  her  grotesque  ebony  coun- 
tenance. 

The  danzon,  for  a  moment,  in  spite  of  the 
music  played  continuously  and  alternately  by 
two  orchestras  occupying  a  box  on  either  side 
of  the  stage,  seemed  formal.  Then,  abruptly, 
a  couple  lost  every  restraint,  and  their  mad- 
dened spinning  and  furious  hips  tore  the  illu- 
sion to  shreds.  And  slowly  I  began  to  be  con- 
scious of  a  poisonous  air,  a  fetid  air  as  palpable 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
as  the  odors  and  scents — the  breath,  the  pre- 
monition, of  the  danger  of  which  I  had  been 
warned.  It  lay  in  an  ugly  hysteria  of  rasped 
emotions  that  at  any  illogical  accident  might 
burst  into  the  shrillness  of  a  knife.  It  wasn't 
dangerous  so  much  as  it  was  abjectly  wicked— 
the  deliberate  calling  up  of  sooty  shapes  that 
had  better  be  kept  buried.  It  was  unimpor- 
tant that  the  men  below  me  were,  in  the  day- 
time, commonplace  clerks;  the  women  could 
be  anything  chance  had  made  them :  here,  to 
the  spoiled  magic  of  Carabalie  nights,  they 
were  evoking  a  ceremonial  of  horror. 

Personally,  since  I  had  no  hopes  to  save  or 
plans  to  protect,  I  hadn't  the  desire,  like  Samp- 
son, to  pull  down  the  pillars  of  the  roof  on 
their  debased  heads.  I  enjoyed  it  remarkably ; 
the  more  because  I  saw,  scattered  among  the 
crowd,  figures  of  unreal  and  detrimental 
beauty — a  creamy  magnificence  in  creamy 
satin  with  a  silver  band  on  her  forehead ;  a  yel- 
low creature  with  oblique  eyes  in  twenty  white 
flounces  and  a  natural  garland  of  purple 
flowers;  a  thing  of  ink,  of  basalt  carved  by  an 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
opulent  chisel,  on  whose  body  clothes  were 
incidental;    and    corrupt   graces    perfect    in 
youth  and  figure  weaving  the  patterns,  the  wis- 
dom, of  Sodom. 

One  o'clock  passed,  then  two  and  three,  but 
there  was  no  abatement  in  the  danzon.  A 
middle-aged  man,  with  an  abstracted  air, 
danced  without  stopping  for  an  hour  and  fifty 
minutes.  His  partner,  flushing  through  her 
dark  skin,  was  expensively  habited:  her  fin- 
gers and  throat  glittered  coldly  with  diamonds 
and  her  hat  was  swept  with  long  dipping 
plumes.  She  had  a  malignant  mouth  and  eyes 
a  thick  muddy  brown,  and  it  was  clear  that  she 
hated  the  man  in  whose  arms  she  was  turning. 
I  wondered  about  her  hatred  and  the  patience, 
the  indifference,  of  the  other:  how  revolting 
she  would  be  in  a  few  hours,  livid  and  ghastly 
in  the  morning.  He,  probably,  would  then  be 
standing  at  a  high  desk,  counting  dollars  with 
integrity  or  adding  columns  of  figures,  precise 
and  respectable  in  an  alpaca  coat.  An  older 
man  still  was  dancing  by  himself,  intent  on  the 
intricate  stepping  of  his  own  feet.  His  agility 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
soon  won  an  admiring  circle,  and  his  violence 
increased  with  the  applause:  he  jumped  in  the 
air,  clapping  his  heels  together,  and  his  arms 
waved  wildly — a  marionette  pulled  convuls- 
ively by  wires  in  strange  merciless  hands. 

I  imagined  a  fetish,  a  large  god,  on  the 
stage,  drooping  over  his  swollen  belly,  with  a 
hanging  lip  and  hands  set  in  his  loins.  His 
legs  were  folded,  lost  in  flesh  ...  a  squatting 
smeared  trunk  of  hideous  service.  Around 
him  were  the  seated  rows  of  worshippers,  on 
either  hand  was  his  jangling  praise ;  and  before 
him  revolved  the  dancers  in  his  rite.  The 
music  throbbed  in  my  brain  like  a  madness 
that  would  have  dragged  me  down  to  the  floor. 
I  speculated  fleetly  over  such  a  surrender,  the 
drop,  through  countless  ages,  of  that  possible 

descent. 

*     *     * 

It  was,  however,  only  just  to  add  that  the 
idol  of  Guinea  suffered  unduly  from  his  sur- 
roundings and  the  age  in  which  he  was  ex- 
posed; in  his  place,  his  time,  he  had  been 
neither  a  monster  nor  unnatural,  but  nothing 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
more  than  the  current  form  of  worship.  He, 
Bongo,  had  had  the  misfortune  to  be  cata- 
pulted, together  with  his  congregation, 
through  twenty,  forty,  centuries,  in  a  breath, 
on  the  magic  carpet  of  greed,  and  put  down 
in  a  day  where  he  was  not  only  obsolete,  but 
repudiated.  Men  saw  him  with  the  sense  of 
horror  generated  by  a  blasting  view  of  their 
own  very  much  earlier  selves.  For  the  dif- 
ference between  the  negro,  the  Carabalies,  or 
Macua,  and  the  Spaniards  of  the  sixteenth 
century  in  Cuba  was,  at  heart,  historical  in 
time  only.  They  were  members — we  were  all 
members — of  one  family.  The  innocence  of 
a  bare  black,  torn  like  a  creeper  from  the  sup- 
port of  his  native  tree,  tatooed  with  necessary 
charms,  medicines,  against  jungle  fears  and 
fevers,  had  more  to  dread  from  Amador  de 
Lares  than  any  later  Christians  owed  to  an 
arbitrarily  imported  savagery.  What,  in  re- 
ality, occurred,  was  implied  on  the  wide  floor 
of  the  opera  house,  was  that  the  negroes,  un- 
able to  change  their  simplicity  as  easily  as 
they  superficially  diluted  their  skins,  kept  their 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
innocent  habits,  their  tastes  in  noise  and  re- 
ligion and  misconduct;  but,  in  the  dress  of 
civilization,  these  took  on  the  aspect  of  a  gro- 
tesque defiled  horror.  With  this,  too,  in  an 
earnest  effort  to  assimilate  as  much  as  possible 
of  their  enforced  land,  they  caught  such  bright 
fragments  of  life  as  struck  them — the  glass 
beads  and  bits  of  gay  cloth — and  copied  them 
prodigiously.  The  confusion  which  followed 
was  a  tragedy  in  the  comic  spirit — a  discor- 
dant mingling  that  provoked  laughter,  quickly 
stopped  by  a  deeper  understanding  and  by 
pity.  The  past  vital  still :  with  the  entrance 
of  the  African  slave  into  the  West,  it  was  ex- 
actly as  though  a  figure  in  the  paint  and 
feathers  of  voodoo  had  been  thrust  into  a 
polite  salon. 

The  spectacle  had  none  of  the  comfortable 
features  of  a  mere  exhibition ;  for  the  revulsion 
came  from  a  spiritual  shudder  in  the  beings 
of  the  onlookers;  while  the  other  injured  in- 
dividuals saw  that,  as  clothes,  the  crude  partial 
imitation  of  a  rooster  was  insufficient.  They, 
the  latter,  commendably  hurried  into  trousers 

[2.8] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
and  pot  hats,  into  satin  trains  and  pink  tulle 
and  white  kid  gloves;  but  the  transition  was 
too  hurried,  too  optimistic,  and  the  resulting 
incongruity  ...  I  was  not  a  student  of  eth- 
nology, I  had  no  theory  of  races,  but,  gazing 
down  from  my  box,  it  seemed  to  me  that  yester- 
day could  not  be  instantly  combined  with  to- 
day ;  it  was  evident  that  there  was  no  short  way 
by  a  long  and  painful  business  of  evolution. 

Nothing  more  unfortunate  could  well  be 
imagined ;  for,  in  the  retributive  manner  I  had 
already  mentioned,  the  Africa  buried  in  the 
West,  so  long  forgotten,  took  life  again,  and 
the  danger  to  everyone  had  been  acute 
through  a  long  period  of  Havana's  years. 
We,  in  temperate  zones,  in  weathers  that  had 
no  need  of  the  protection  of  a  special  dark  pig- 
ment, had  been  lucky;  but  we  were  trying  our 
luck  very  severely  by  subjecting  it  to  the  old 
potencies  not  yet  entirely  lost.  The  danzon 
was,  actually,  in  a  way  beyond  legislation,  a 
masked  ball  in  black  and  white,  where  the  un- 
masking was  involuntary  and  fateful. 

One,  I  thought,  spoiled  the  other,  like  an 
[219] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
incomplete  experiment  in  chemistry  where 
nothing  but  an  opaque  liquid  and  an  intoler- 
able stench  was  evolved.  Perhaps,  with 
acute  necessity,  a  successful  clear  result  would 
reward  the  future  with  peace;  but  it  wouldn't 
happen  in  my  knowledge;  I  hadn't  a  thing  in 
the  world  to  do  with  it.  What  occurred  to 
me  then  was  the  useful  fact  that  the  present 
scene  afforded  the  right,  the  only,  ending  for 
my  story,  The  Bright  Shawl.  It  would 
have  to  be  tragic,  but  only  indirectly;  nothing, 
I  had  decided,  should  happen  to  my  principal 
character  beyond  a  young  moment  of  supreme 
romance.  No,  the  mishap,  death,  must  en- 
velop his  friend,  the  patriotic  Cuban.  He'd 
be  killed  by  a  Spanish  officer,  through  a 
woman — a  woman  in  the  bright  shawl  of  the 
dancer  that  had  been  preserved  as  a  memento 
of  tender  regard. 

Some  arrangement  was  necessary,  perhaps  a 
prostitute.  Well — I  had  seen  her,  in  virginal 
white  muslin,  with  the  weight  of  her  head,  its 
oval  flattened  by  the  hand  of  China,  her  heavy 
hair,  inclined  on  its  slender  neck:  a  figure,  in 
[220] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
my  pages,  impassively  fateful,  remote  as  I  had 
seen  her  seated  in  a  gay  company.  That 
finished  the  story,  for  the  youthful  American, 
after  a  vain  public  effort  to  secure  for  himself 
the  dignity  of  a  heroic  end,  would  be  ignomin- 
iously  deported  from  Cuba.  I  had  been  often 
asked  how  1  arrived  at  my  plots,  but  more 
often  accused  of  never  reaching  an  intelligible 
plan,  and,  until  now,  I'd  been  incapable  of 
giving  an  explanation  satisfactory  even  to  my- 
self ;  but  here  was  one  accounted  for  to  a  con- 
siderable degree.  It  had  begun  by  an  instinc- 
tive attachment  to  a  city,  to  Havana;  and  the 
emotions  brought  into  being  had  crystallized 
into  a  plan,  for  me,  unusually  concise. 

There  was  a  temptation,  to  be  avoided,  to 
tell  it  in  the  first  person;  a  version  that  had 
come  to  be  disliked  almost  as  universally  as  a 
set  of  letters.  Some  celebrated  stories  had 
been  written  that  way — Youth — but  I  felt  that 
it  was  an  unnecessary  charge  on  sympathy. 
While  the  creation  of  character  was  no  longer 
the  tyrant  it  had  been,  a  certain  air  of  veracity 
was  most  desirable,  and  the  limited  scope  of  a 
[221] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
single  intelligence  discussing,  explaining,  him- 
self was  too  marked.  The  great  trouble  with 
the  romantic  novels  up  to  the  very  present  had 
been  that  there  was  never  a  doubt  of  the  ulti- 
mate happiness  of  all  who  should  be  happy 
and  the  overwhelming  misery  of  those  who 
should  be  miserable.  No  peril  was  the  father 
of  a  thrill,  because  from  its  irrception  it  was 
plainly  impotent  to  harm  the  lovely  and  the 
brave.  The  pleasure  had  from  witnessing  a 
dexterous  job  was  lost  in  an  artifice  that  seldom 
approached  an  art.  But  we'd  improved  that, 
an  improvement  expressed  in  the  utter  loss  of 
the  word  hero;  no  man,  or  woman,  was  now 
entirely  safe  in  the  hands  of  his  romantic  au- 
thor; the  two  manners  had  come  creditably 
together. 

I  had  become,  subconsciously,  interested  in 
a  girl  pausing  on  the  floor,  and,  in  response  to 
my  scrutiny,  she  glanced  up  with  a  shadowy 
smile.  I  gazed  with  instant  celerity  and  fix- 
edness at  the  ceiling,  then  at  the  upper  boxes 
opposite,  since  below,  indiscretion  was  laid  like 
a  trail  of  powder,  of  explosive  rice  powder. 
[222] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
There  was  no  cutting  in  at  that  ball.  She  was 
more  than  charming,  too,  with  her  mixed 
blood  evident  in  her  carriage,  her  indolence, 
rather  than  in  feature.  She  wore  blue,  a 
wisely  simple  dress  that  showed  small  feet, 
like  butterflies  in  their  lightness,  and  the  in- 
stinctive note  of  a  narrow  black  velvet  band  on 
her  throat. 

An  air  of  sadness  rested  on  her,  on,  princi- 
pally, a  superiority  anyone  could  see.  Her 
fan  opened  and  shut  in  a  thin  pointed  hand. 
A  maid,  I  told  myself,  reflecting  the  aristoc- 
racy of  the  closets  of  delicate  clothes  in  her 
charge,  scented  from  the  gold-stoppered  bot- 
tles of  her  mistress.  She  was  another  phase 
of  what  had  been  going  on  at  such  length 
through  my  mind — a  different  catastrophe, 
since  she  was  denied  the  reward  of  the  virtues 
in  either  of  the  races  that  had  made  her.  In 
Boston  she  would  have  become  a  bluestock- 
ing, a  poet  singing  in  minor  cadence  to  tradi- 
tional abolitionists  become  dilettantes,  but  in 
Cuba,  tormented  by  the  strains  of  the  dan- 
zon: 

[223] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
There,  her  flax  burning  in  resentment  and 
despair,  she  might  be  extinguished  in  the  tide 
restlessly  sweeping  to  the  troubled  coast  of 
Birrajos:  or,  at  Havana,  carried  into  the  se- 
crets of  the  Nanigos :  in  the  black  cabildo  of 
that  society,  provision  was  made  for  a  woman. 


It  was  significant  that  the  first  organization 
of  naniguismo  in  Cuba  was  purely  African, 
for  the  hatred  of  its  members,  Carabalies,  for 
the  white  race  made  the  admission  of  even 
mulattos  impossible.  This  society — tierra  or 
juego — was  formed  during  the  administration 
of  General  Tacon,  in  the  village  of  Regla,  and 
called  Apapa  Efi.  It  was,  against  the  pro- 
tests of  its  originators  at  sharing  the  secret 
with  too  many,  enlarged,  and  spread  through 
the  outskirts  of  Havana.  There  the  mulattos 
greatly  outnumbered  the  blacks,  and  they 
formed  a  society  of  their  own,  its  oath  sworn 
in  Ancha  del  Norte  Street,  named  Ecobio  Efo 
Macarara.  They  insisted  on  a  common 
brotherhood  and  their  right  of  entering  the 
[224] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
fambas,  the  ceremonial  rooms;  but  there  was 
a  determined  opposition,  open  battle  and  mur- 
der in  Perserverancia  and  Lagunas  Streets. 
After  this  there  was  a  general  meeting  at  Ma- 
rianao,  the  early  bar  to  color,  as  distinguished 
from  black,  removed,  and  the  infusion  of  the 
dark  ritual  of  Efi  into  white  blood  began. 
When,  ten  years  after,  an  indiscriminate  so- 
ciety, the  Ecobio  Efo,  was  terminated  by  the 
authorities,  Spanish  nobles  and  professional 
men  were  assisting  in  the  rites. 

What  bad  started  upon  the  African  river 
Oldan  as  a  tribal  religion  took  on,  in  Havana, 
a  debased  version  of  Rome,  and  the  veneration 
of  Santa  Barbara  was  added  to  the  supreme 
worship  of  Ecue,  a  figure  vaguely  parallel  to 
the  Holy  Ghost,  created  in  the  sounding  of  a 
sacred  drum.  And  what,  equally,  in  the  Car- 
abalie  Bricamo  was  Dibo,  God,  became  in 
Cuba  an  organization  of  criminals  and  finally, 
when  its  more  obvious  aspects  were  stamped 
out,  a  corrupt  political  influence.  There,  in 
the  clearest  possible  manner,  was  traced  the 
eventual  effect  of  so  much  heralded  superior- 
[225] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
ity,  such  enormous  advantages,  on  native  be- 
lief. 

There  could  be  no  doubt,  though,  of  the 
fact  that,  in  any  pretence  of  civilization,  the 
nanigos  were  detrimental;  it  was  unavoidable 
that  they  should  have  degenerated  into  a  sav- 
age menace,  not  only  in  overt  acts,  which  were 
not  lacking,  but  in  practices  of  mental  and 
emotional  horror.  Their  ceremony,  with  its 
strange  vocables  and  distortions  of  meaning; 
the  obscene  words  that  were  but  symbols  for 
obscenities  beyond  imagination;  the  character 
of  their  dance,  which  gave  them  the  name  ar- 
rastrados,  men  who  dragged  themselves,  rep- 
tilian, on  the  ground — all  combined  in  a  poison 
like  a  gas  sweeping  from  the  morass  of  the 
past.  It  held,  beneath  its  refuge  and  defiance 
of  society,  the  appeal  of  a  portentous  secret, 
bound  in  blood,  the  fascination,  the  fetishism, 
of  orgiastic  rituals,  and,  under  that,  stronger 
still,  delirious  barbarity. 

Its  legend  was  not  different  from  the  others 
which  formed  the  primitive  bases  of  subse- 
quent elaborate  beliefs:  the  miracle,  with  an 
[226] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
attending  baptism,  was  consummated  by  a 
woman,  Sicanecua,  who  found  a  crying  fish— 
the  fish  was  a  sacred  Christian  sign — in  her 
jar  of  water.  In  recognition  of  this  she  was 
sacrificed  and  her  blood  put  to  a  holy  use,  and 
the  fish  skinned  for  the  drum,  -sounded  by  the 
fingers,  used  in  his  praise.  Here  Ecue,  the  di- 
vine, was  baptized  by  Efo  in  the  Oldan,  who 
in  turn  signed  his  disciple.  And  about  that 
tradition,  guarded — with  its  instrument — in 
the  altar,  Ecue  sese,  the  degenerate  elements 
and  characters  of  modern  naniguismo  gath- 
ered. There  were,  necessarily,  changes  in  the 
Cuban  form  of  worship — the  skin  of  a  goat 
was  substituted  for  the  unprocurable  variety 
of  fish,  and  the  timbre  of  the  original  drum 
secured  by  an  artifice.  The  need,  as  well,  of 
finding  another  anointment  than  human  blood, 
difficult  to  procure  in  Havana,  led  to  the  sacri- 
fice of  the  rooster  or  a  goat.  This,  now,  had 
a  crucifix,  with  the  profession  that  God,  Dibo, 
must  be  over  everything,  and  a  sacramental 
singing;  but  not  the  Te  Deum  or  Laudes  .  .  . 
Efore  sisi  llamba,  and  the  reply  Ho  Isueribo 
[227] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
engomo  .  .  .  Mocongo!  while  the  Empego, 
the  clerk  of  the  service,  shifted  brightly  col- 
ored curtains  and  enveloping  handkerchiefs 
and  marked  with  yellow  chalk  the  head  and 
body  and  palms  of  the  initiates. 

A  diablito  had  in  charge  the  offices  of  the 
catechism — Come  with  me;  where  did  you 
leave  your  feet;  where  I  left  my  head!  Enter 
where  Bongo  is  and  cry  with  your  brother! 
Look  at  your  brother  because  they  want  to 
choke  him.  He  conducted  the  sacrifice  of  the 
goat,  which,  in  a  memorial  of  Guinea,  was 
eaten  with  pointed  sticks,  with  the  drink  Mu- 
cuba,  made  from  sugar-cane  rum  and  bitter 
broom.  A  strange  procession  followed,  led 
by  the  Insue,  with  a  woman  in  a  shift,  Sicane- 
cue,  and  the  diablito  skipping  backward.  The 
sese,  a  silver  crucifix  with  four  black  feathers, 
was  carried,  and  later  the  remains  of  the  feast 
were  thrown  into  a  cemetery. 

The  effort  to  end  naniguismo  in  Havana  be- 
gan in  eighteen  hundred  and  seventy-five, 
when  its  gatherings  were  forbidden ;  but, 
deeply  traditional,  it  flourished  in  hidden 

[228] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
places,  in  the  jail  where  nanigos  were  con- 
fined and  the  cellars  of  Jesus  Maria.  Long 
before  that  the  poet  Placido  had  been  killed; 
within  a  few  years  the  Llamba  named  Hand 
on  the  Ground  was  judicially  executed;  and 
following  the  assassinations  during  the  carni- 
val of  eighteen  hundred  and  sixty-five,  sweep- 
ing deportations  were  enforced.  In  Maloja 
Street  a  juego,  Acaniran  Efo  Primero,  with 
officers  drawn  from  reputable  quarters,  was 
surprised ;  the  next  year  the  Abacua  Efo  was 
exterminated;  a  public  clash  of  diablitos  re- 
sulted in  apprehensions;  and  twenty-five  nan- 
igos were  taken  on  Vista  Hermosa  Street. 

It  was,  in  reality,  Africa  in  Havana, 
brought  against  its  wish  and  to  its  tragic  mis- 
fortune; and,  planted  in  an  alien  soil,  but 
among  a  common  genus,  the  mysteries  of  re- 
ligion, it  grew  into  an  aberration  of  all  that 
gave  it  birth.  Aside  from  this,  its  significance, 
for  me,  lay  in  its  amazing  language,  an  idiom, 
specifically,  composed  of  the  Carabalie  Bric- 
amo  and  a  Spanish  without  articles  or  con- 
junctions, equally  incapable  of  exact  images 
[229] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
and  the  expression  of  abstract  thought.  But 
taking  the  place  of  its  omissions,  was  a  con- 
gealing power  of  suggestion,  of  creating, 
through,  apparently,  no  more  than  the  jumb- 
ling of  common  terms  and  sounds,  sensations 
of  abject  dread.  The  four  bishops  of  the  rit- 
ual, in  their  order,  were  Irrsue,  Illamba,  Mo- 
congo,  Empego.  In  naniguismo  man  was 
momban,  an  idiot  was  sansguere,  a  knife  icua 
rebesine,  a  pistol  etombre,  immortality  em- 
bigiii,  the  night  erufie,  war  ochangana,  the 
sun  fanson,  and  worms  cocorico.  The  lan- 
guage took  short  rigid  forms,  phrase's;  it  had 
little  if  any  plasticity:  Amandido  amanllu- 
rube,  The  day  goes  and  the  night  comes.  Efi- 
quefi  que  buton  efique  Ename  onton  Ellego 
Efimeremo  Iboito,  Eurico  sangacurici  eurico 
sanga  quimagua  sanga  nampe,  nampe  sanga 
mariba,  The  owl  drinks  the  blood  of  the  dead 
and  flies  to  the  sea. 

The  terms  of  the  acts  of  worship  were  par- 
ticularly   heavy,    sultry,    and    held    in    their 
sound  alone  the  oppressive  significance  of  fet- 
ishes as  black  as  the  night  from  which  they 
[230] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
were  shaped.  The  minister  of  death  to  Sin- 
anecua,  a  ceremony  which  became  traditional, 
was  named  Cuanon-Araferrobre,  and  the  act 
of  sacrifice  the  Acua  Meropo.  The  singers 
before  the  altar,  making  visible  the  sacred 
stick,  Baston  Mocongo,  intoned  Mocongo  Ma- 
chevere,  Mosongo  moto  cumbaba  eribo,  and 
Erendio  basi  Borne,  I  believe  in  God  and  God 
is  great;  with,  at  the  last,  silencing  the  profes- 
sion of  faith,  the  voice  of  the  drum,  tarini- 
bongo. 

The  nanigos  had  been  driven  from  the 
streets  through  which,  at  first,  on  'King's  Day, 
Dia  Reyes,  they  were  permitted,  once  a  year, 
to  parade  with  native  costumes  and  instru- 
ments— atables  and  marugas  and  ecous,  a  flat- 
tened bell  struck  by  a  thin  stick.  Their  fam- 
bas  were  destroyed  and  hysteria  cooled;  but  I 
wondered  about  both  the  secretiveness  and 
the  persistence  of  the  primitive  spirit  and  the 
delicate  melancholy  that  veiled  the  girl  so 
faintly  tinged  with  carabalie,  resting  below 
my  box  through  the  rasping  strains  of  the  dan- 
zon.  Had  her  gain  been  greater  than  the  loss, 

[230 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
the  ruin,  of  her  simplicity;  had  she,  dragged 
abruptly  from  saurian  shadows,  been  made 
white  by  an  arbitrary  papal  sun? 


*     * 


A  glimmering  dawn,  faintly  salt  with  the 
presence  of  the  sea,  was  evident  in  the  Parque 
Central  when  I  walked  the  short  distance,  not 
more  than  a  few  steps,  from  the  opera  house 
to  the  Inglaterra,  my  head  filled  with  the  res- 
onant bos  and  bongos  of  naniguismo.  Ha- 
vana, for  a  moment,  seemed  like  a  cemetery- 
its  own  marble  cemetery  of  Colon — where  a 
black  spirit,  buried  in  a  secret  grave,  walked 
and  would  not  be  still.  I  speculated  about 
that  same  spirit  in  another  connection — in  its 
influence  on  painting  and  music,  on  Western 
literature.  It  had  affected  dancing  pro- 
foundly, making  it,  in  the  United  States,  al- 
most wholly  its  own;  and  the  Spanish,  with 
whom,  in  the  richness  of  a  tradition  and  per- 
fect expression,  no  others  could  compete, 
owed  a  great  debt  to  Africa.  Our  music,  too, 
it  had  influenced  to  such  a  degree  that  it  was 
[232] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
doubtful  if  we  had  any  outside  the  beat  of 
negro  strains. 

Stephen  Foster,  a  great  composer  in  that  he 
had  enclosed  the  whole  sentiment  of  an  age 
within  his  medium,  was  often  but  a  paraphrase 
of  a  darker  melody.  Foster,  like  Havana, 
was  Victorian,  a  period  that  dreamed  of  mar- 
ble halls,  set  in  a  pitch  impossible  now,  and 
yet,  curiously,  charged  for  an  unsympathetic 
world  with  significant  beauty.  This  negro 
contribution  was  in  a  melancholy  and  minor 
key,  the  invariable  tone  of  all  primitive  song; 
in  poetry,  as  well,  a  lyrical  poetry  nearly  ap- 

V 

proaching  music,  there  was  an  analogous  col- 
oring between  the  race  and  its  shadowed  meas- 
ures. 

The  reminiscent  emotions  that,  with  us, 
were  mainly  personal,  in  the  negro  were 
tribal;  he  had  not  been  individualized, 
brought  to  a  separate  consciousness;  and,  in 
consequence,  his  song,  practically  lacking  in 
intellect,  dealt  only  with  instinctive  feelings. 
Growing  shrill  with  passion  and  sinking  to 
the  monotonous  laments  of  formless  sorrow,  it 
[233] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
belonged  equally  to  all  the  men,  the  women, 
who  heard  it — it  was  their  voice  and  compre- 
hensible triumph  or  pain;  without  artifice  it 
wasn't  artificial  nor  ever  insincere;  and,  as  a 
means  of  gold,  a  medium  for  lies,  it  had  no 
existence.  The  voice  of  all,  an  instrument  of 
natural  beauty,  shared  by  villages,  its  pure 
quality,  brought  in  slave  ships  that  rotted  with 
their  dead  on  the  sea,  gave  the  shallow  and 
vitiated  West  a  fresh  earthen  tonic  chord. 

The  negro,  naturally,  hadn't  grown  more 
cheerful  in  his  new  imposed  setting;  and  it 
was  possible  that  his  music  had  gained  an 
added  depth,  at  any  rate  for  our  perception, 
from  the  weight  of  banishment  and  shackles. 
He  had  not  turned  with  any  success  to  crea- 
tive accomplishment  that  needed  mental  in- 
dependence and  courage,  or  to  forms,  like  the 
novel,  wholly  modern.  On  the  other  side,  the 
novel,  with  all  its  trumpeted  young  freedom, 
had  never,  with  even  relative  truth,  expressed 
the  negro  in  the  Americas.  This,  a  subject  of 
appalling  splendor,  had,  in  the  United  States, 
been  turned  over  to  the  comic  spirit  and  short 

[234] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
impressions — stories,  superficially,  falsely,  pa- 
thetic. The  fact  was  that  we  had  enormously 
harmed  the  negro,  and  for  that  reason,  in  the 
familiar  process  of  human  self-esteem,  na- 
tionally we  were  uneasy,  resentful  in  his  pres- 
ence. We  saw  him,  when  we  escaped  from 
absolute  hatred,  as  a  figure,  a  subject,  without 
dignity:  we  lacked  there  the  penetrative  sym- 
pathy which  was  the  soul  of  imaginative  fic- 
tion. Such  a  novel,  I  thought,  was  perhaps 
of  everything  that  offered  the  best  worth  writ- 
ing. 

Certainly  nothing  more  difficult  could  be 
well  attempted;  my  knowledge,  in  Havana 
and  through  the  nanigos,  had  been  perceptibly 
enlarged,  and  I  was  not  unfamiliar  with  the 
state  in  which,  I  decided,  the  story  must  be  laid 
—not  in  Virginia,  but  upon  a  level  grey  reach 
of  Louisiana,  cut  by  tideless  bayous  and  satu- 
rated with  the  fever  of  cane  and  cypress 
brakes.  A  bitter  novel  like  the  broom  herb 
put  in  the  ceremonial  drink  Mucuba,  pages 
from  which  it  would  be  hard  to  exclude  a  fury 
of  hopelessness!  And  what  an  angry  dis- 

[235] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
turbed  wasplike  hum  it  would  provoke!  No 
magazine,  of  course,  would  touch  it — it  would 
be  sold,  for  a  week  or  ten  days,  from  under 
counters,  and  then  we,  my  novel  and  myself, 
metaphorically  burned.  A  magnificent  pro- 
ject: 

A  huddle  of  cabins  at  the  edge  of  a  wall  of 
black  pines  beyond  a  deep  ruined  field — but 
perhaps  this  was  South  Carolina — infinitesi- 
mal ragged  patches  of  corn,  a  sandy  trail  lost 
abruptly  in  the  close  forest,  and  half-naked 
portentous  shapes.  There  would  be  a  town 
back  in  the  country  with  a  desolate  red  square 
of  great  sprawling  water-oaks  smothered  in 
hanging  moss,  a  place  at  once  old  and  raw, 
and  ugly  with  vindictive  ignorance.  .  .  .  The 
negroes  were  infinitely  happier  in  Havana, 
where  the  heat,  the  palms,  were  their  own ;  and 
I  was  surprised  that  they  didn't  desert  the 
United  States  in  a  body  for  a  suaver  spirit  in 
the  air  and  man.  Cuba,  to  a  large  measure, 
with  what  final  result  I  wasn't  concerned,  had 
absorbed  them  in  the  manner  that  Spain  had 
absorbed  the  Moors.  Havana  made  some  de- 

[236] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
nial  of  this,  and  prided  itself,  with  entire  jus- 
tice where  it  was  true,  on  unmixed  Castilian 
blood;  but  the  other  was  perceptible  in  the 
gait,  the  very  whiteness,  of  Cuba's  principal 
city — the  whitest  walls  on  earth.  This  didn't 
bother  me;  I  liked  Havana  from  its  farthest 
view  to  its  most  intimate  fagade,  and  I  was 
grateful  to  whatever  had  made  it. 

In  my  room  the  negro,  with  the  danzon, 
faded  from  my  mind;  and  I  only  paused  to 
speculate  dimly  about  his  overwhelming  pref- 
erence, where  a  choice  existed,  for  the  Protes- 
tant religions  instead  of  Roman  Catholicism. 
I  should  have  thought  that  the  color,  the 
imagery  and  incense,  of  the  Catholic  Church 
would  be  irresistible.  Yet  there  were,  in  the 
United  States,  thousands  of  colored  Metho- 
dists and  Baptists  for  one  adherent  of  Rome. 
It  might  be  that  the  hymns  of  Methodism,  suf- 
ficiently melancholy  and  barbarous  in  figure, 
God  knew,  were  the  reason — the  character  of 
the  hymns  and  congregational  singing,  the 
loud  pictorial  shouts.  The  later  religion  of 
the  negroes,  in  addition  to  what  I  had  already 

[237] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
considered,  was  a  subject  to  be  avoided;  but 
running  through  my  mind  was  the  memory 
that  in  Richmond,  not  long  ago,  it  was  com- 
mon in  the  evenings  of  spring  for  bands  of 
negroes  to  go  through  the  streets  singing  spir- 
ituals and  constantly  gathering  others  who 
dropped  their  work,  their  responsibilities,  to 
join  the  passing  chorus  of  hope. 

That  was  lost  now,  I  understood,  a  vanished 
custom,  killed  by  self-consciousness;  but  it 
would  have  been  a  fine  thing  to  hear  ap- 
proaching and  receding  through  the  dusk,  a 
stirring  resinous  volume  or  a  mere  vibrant 
echo,  a  dying  whisper.  Perhaps  that,  a  dying 
whisper,  would  be  the  solving  of  the  whole 
tragic  difficulty — disease  and  winter  and  re- 
lentless natural  laws.  The  latter  moved  with 
great  deliberation  through  unlimited  centu- 
ries, but  the  impatience  of  men  demanded  in- 
stant release  from  trouble.  They  wanted 
black  black  and  white  white,  with  no  transi- 
tion, no  blurring  of  the  edges;  this  was  their 
dream,  but  they  constantly  defeated  it,  be- 
trayed their  ideal.  Yes,  it  might  be  that 

[238] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
the  humility  of  that  defeat,  in  the  far 
future,  would  accomplish  a  universally 
white  city.  Only  one  other  way  offered : 
a  different  humanity  from  any  which 
had  yet  appeared  outside  rare  individuals 
.  .  .  but  that  vision  seemed,  to  me,  as  fantas- 
tic as  the  sentence  in  Carabalie  Bricamo  that 
gave  it  expression,  Eruco  en  llenison  comun- 
bairan  abasi  otete  alleri  pongo — We  of  this 
world  -are  all  together.  The  truth  was,  hon- 
estly at  heart,  that  I  couldn't  commit  myself 
to  all,  or  even  a  quarter,  of  what  this  would 
have  demanded.  Impersonally  I  was  able  to 
see  that,  as  an  idea,  it  was  superb,  I  realized 
that  something  of  it  must  inform  my  pages; 
but  it  was  useless  to  pretend  that  I  could  be- 
gin to  carry  it  out  or  that  I  was,  in  practice, 
a  Christian.  I  was  tired,  and  my  thoughts 
grew  confused,  but  dimly  in  my  mind  was 
again  the  consciousness  of  the  remote  fate  of 
the  creative  writer,  an  individual  without  even 
the  desire  to  be  a  part  of  that  for  which  he 

cried. 

*     *     * 

[239] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
Certainly  I  had  no  marked  love  of  humanity 
the  following  morning,  caught  with  a  small 
mob  in  a  narrow  passage  of  the  wharf  where 
I  was  waiting  to  board  the  steamer  for  Key 
West.  I  was  between  the  water  and  a  wooden 
partition,  the  heat  was  savage,  and  a  number 
of  youthful  marines,  returning  home  from 
Camaguey,  were  indulging  in  a  characteristic 
humor — the  dealing  of  unsuspected  blows, 
of  jarring  force,  among  themselves.  They 
shoved  each  other,  in  a  crowd  shoulder  to 
shoulder,  disregarding  entirely  the  indirect 
results  of  their  vigor,  and  exchanged  threats 
of  fulminating  violence.  They  were  not  more 
annoying  than  the  others,  but  only  more  evi- 
dent; and,  as  the  advertised  time  of  departure 
was  past  by  an  hour,  and  then  a  second  hour, 
and  the  sun  found  its  way  into  our  walled 
space,  even  the  marines  subsided.  Every  trace 
of  dignity,  in  that  heat,  ran  away  from  the 
people  about  me.  While,  on  the  whole,  they 
were  uncomplaining,  even  relatively  consider- 
ate of  others'  discomforts,  wondering,  with 
weary  smiles,  when  the  boat  would  be  off,  I 
[240] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
had  no  such  kindly  promptings.  ...  I  hated 
them  all,  the  ugliness  of  the  women  and  the 
men's  dull  or  merely  sharp  faces,  with  an  in- 
tensity that  wasn't  normal.  When  I  was  very 
young  irfdeed,  scarcely  past  two,  I  had  been 
nearly  crushed  in  a  throng  after  the  Sesqui- 
centennial  parade  in  Philadelphia;  long  aft- 
erward I  had  been,  to  all  practical  pur- 
poses, asphyxiated  in  a  train  that  broke  down 
in  an  Apennine  tunnel;  as  a  result,  I  had  an 
unreasoning  fear  of  crowded  bodies  or  limited 
space;  and  this  dread,  before  long,  on  the  Ha- 
vana wharf,  turned  into  an  acute  aversion  for 
every  individual  and  thing  about  me. 

The  surrounding  insistent  good  nature  de- 
veloped in  flashes  of  exchanged  homely  wit, 
varied  by  the  attitudes  of  restraint,  and,  of 
them  both,  I  couldn't  tell  which  I  resented 
more.  The  present  position  of  the  waiting 
people,  the  long  exposure  to  the  intolerable 
sun,  was  the  result  of  their  patience;  of  that 
and  their  personal  inefficiency  reflected  in 
their  official  management.  All  the  bad  gov- 
ernments in  the  world,  the  dishonesty  and  uni- 

[24'] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
versal  muddles,  were  nothing  more  than  mon- 
uments to  the  immeasurable  stupidity  and 
greed  of  the  people;  they  were  betrayed  polit- 
ically not  by  powerful  and  unscrupulous  par- 
ties and  men,  but  by  themselves;  perpetually 
and  always  by  their  own  laziness  and  supersti- 
tion and  jealousy. 

The  Cubenos,  the  original  inhabitants  of 
Cuba,  were  parcelled  in  the  bondage  of  enco- 
miendas,  exterminated  by  the  passion  of  the 
Spanish  Crown  for  gold;  when  they  had 
been  sacrificed,  Africa  was  raked  by  sla- 
vers for  labor  in  the  mines  and  planting; 
beneath  every  movement,  instigated  by  hope 
or  supported  by  returns,  riches  were  the  incen- 
tive and  power.  Men  had  never,  within  his- 
tory and  their  secret  hearts,  cared  for  anything 
else:  an  ineradicable  desire.  There  was  a 
facile  public  gabble  about  the  qualities  of  the 
spirit,  about  soul;  but  the  solid  fact  of 
money,  both  as  an  abstraction  and  what  con- 
spicuously it  brought,  was  what  the  people 
worshipped,  wanted,  what  they  schemed  or 
[242] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
stole  for,  or  in  the  service  of  which  they  per- 
formed the  most  heroic  toil. 

This  was  not,  necessarily,  an  ignoble  or  neg- 
ligible pursuit,  but  it  was  corrupted  by  an  at- 
tending hypocrisy  which  forced  a  fervent  de- 
nial, the  pretense  of  an  utterly  different  pur- 
pose, to  be  worn  like  a  cloak.  It  was  possible 
that,  admitted,  the  sovereignty  of  gold  would 
be  the  most  beneficial  rule  applicable  to  man. 
It  was  preeminently  the  symbol,  the  signature, 
of  power;  with  the  late  sugar  crops  it  had  rev- 
olutionized Cuba.  Havana  was  for  the  mo- 
ment, in  a  very  strong  sense,  the  capital  of  the 
world,  and  the  visible  mark  of  that  was  the 
stream  of  automobiles  on  the  Prado  and  Male- 
con;  individually,  money  was  counted  by  the 
million — the  recognition,  the  desired  reward, 
of  the  fact  that  Cuba  controlled  a  necessity  of 
life.  The  instinct  to  profit  by  such  turns  of 
fortune  was  deeper  than  any  charitable  im- 
pulse; there  was  a  tendency  to  speculate  in 
wheat  more  general  than  the  impulse  to  give 
loaves  to  the  starving. 

[243] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
There  was  a  sudden  surge  toward  the  gang 
plank  of  the  City  of  Miami,  and  I  was  borne 
onto  the  steamer,  away  from  Havana,  in  an 
exasperated  and  bitter  spirit.  I  had  entered 
the  harbor  happily,  saturated  by  its  beauty, 
but  I  was  leaving  blind  to  the  marble  walls 
on  the  blue  water.  However,  it  was  cooler 
on  an  upper  deck;  and  with  my  back  uncom- 
promisingly turned  on  humanity,  on  my  fel- 
low passengers  over  a  sea  like  a  tranquil  il- 
lusion of  respite  between  stubborn  realities,  I 
picked  out  from  the  panorama  of  the  city 
across  the  harbor,  diminishing  in  its  narrow 
entrance,  familiar  buildings  and  marks.  Ha- 
vana vanished,  I  thought,  far  more  rapidly 
than  it  had  come  into  view;  soon  nothing  of 
Cuba  could  be  seen  but  the  dark  green  hills 
and  thinly  printed  silhouettes  of  mountains. 
I  had  it,  though,  in  my  memory;  Havana  was 
now  woven  into  the  fibre  of  my  being. 

The  Inglaterra  Hotel  took  its  place  with 

all  the  remembered  spots  where  I  had  lived: 

the   bare  pine-sealed   room  in   the  Virginia 

mountains,  the  tall  narrow  house  in  Geneva, 

[244] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
the  courtyard  in  the  Via  San  Gallo,  the  brick 
house  in  a  suburb  from  which,  in  a  rebellion 
against  every  circumstance  of  my  life,  I  had 
escaped.  I  recalled  days  on  end  when  I  had 
tried  to  write  without  the  ability  to  form  a 
single  acceptable  sentence,  when  the  floor  was 
heaped  and  littered  with  pages  crushed  and 
flung  away.  Then,  it  had  seemed,  I  should 
get  nowhere,  and  see,  do,  nothing.  ...  Ha- 
vana was  a  singularly  lovely  city.  A  rush  of 
small  mementos  of  its  life  flooded  my  mind — 
the  aroma  of  the  cigars,  the  coolness  of  the 
Telegrafo  Cafe  and  the  savor  of  its  Daiquiri 
cocktails,  the  burning  strip  of  sunlight  that,  at 
noon,  found  its  way  into  Obispo  Street.  It 
was  still  possible  to  get  Ron  Bacardi  in  the 
United  States.  I  was  carrying  back  a  large 
provision  of  exceedingly  fine  cigars,  not  from 
the  Larranaga  factory,  but  a  slender  Corona, 
a  shape  specially  rolled  for  a  discrimination  as 
delicate  as  any  in  Cuba.  Yet,  away  from  Ha- 
vana, they  wouldn't  taste  the  same;  in  the 
United  States  they'd  deteriorate;  and,  where  I 
lived,  there  were  no  fresh,  no  emerald-green 

[245] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
limes,    and    without    them    a    Daiquiri    was 
robbed  of  its  inimitable  flavor. 

But  what,  more  than  those,  I  should  miss 
was  the  atmosphere  of  Havana  itself,  the  gay 
urbanity  and  festive  lightness  of  tone.  It  had 
almost  wholly  escaped  the  modern  passion 
for  reform  changing  America,  pretty  much 
all  the  western  world,  into  a  desert  of 
precept  and  correction;  in  many  senses 
Havana  was  an  oasis  in  an  aridity  spreading 
day  by  day.  Any  improvement  wouldn't  oc- 
cur during  my  life — the  habit  of  lies  and  self- 
delusion  had  become  a  fundamental  part  of 
society — and  all  I  could  hope  for  was  the  dis- 
covery of  rare  individuals  and  cities  in  which 
existence  was  more  than  a  penalty  for  having 
been  born.  I  wanted  them  as  a  relaxation,  as 
short  escapes  from  a  tyranny  from  which, 
really,  I  was  powerless  to  turn : 

I  didn't  want  to  live  in  Havana,  nor  to  be 
surrounded  by  exceptional  people;  for  they 
were  both  enemies  of  what,  above  everything, 
I  wanted  to  do — to  write  into  paper  and  ink 
some  permanence  of  beauty.  For  that,  Ches- 

[246] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
ter  County  and  the  solid  stone  block  of  my 
house  were  necessary,  a  temperate  climate  in- 
dispensable. At  heart,  in  spite  of  my  con- 
stant fault-finding,  my  threats  of  leaving,  I 
was  bound  by  associations  deeper  than  mere 
intelligence.  No,  nothing  so  powerful  as  an 
obsession  had  overtaken  me  approaching  Ha- 
vana; I  was  not,  in  actuality,  an  adventurer, 
but  only  a  seeker  for  charm,  for  memories,  to 
carry  back  to  the  low  window  to  which  I  had 
already  referred.  The  charm  of  Havana  was 
its  strangeness,  the  vividness  of  its  sudden  im- 
pression on  me,  the  temporary  freedom,  grace, 
it  offered.  It  was  characteristic  of  freedom, 
•too,  that,  in  the  end,  it  became  slavery;  while 
slavery  had,  at  times,  extraordinarily  the  ap- 
pearance of  freedom.  Not  a  month  ago  I  had 
dropped,  with  a  sigh,  a  gasp  of  relief,  a  pen 
heavier  than  anything  else  on  earth,  and  now 
I  could  scarcely  restrain  the  eagerness — the 
confidence,  at  last,  of  success — with  which  I 
wanted  to  take  it  up  again. 
*  *  * 
When  I  turned,  looking  back,  Cuba  had 

[247] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
vanished,  sunk  below  the  line  of  the  sea.  The 
Gulf  Stream  was  indigo;  along  the  side  of  the 
steamer,  foam  hissed  with  a  sharp  whiteness, 
and  at  the  bow  miniature  rainbows  hung  shim- 
mering in  the  spray.  The  perpetual  soft 
clouds  of  the  Gulf  Stream  were  very  high  and 
faint.  In  my  imagination  Havana  assumed  a 
magic,  a  mythical,  state — a  vision  that,  I  was 
certain,  had  no  absolute  ponderable  existence. 
It  was  a  city  created  on  a  level  bright  tide,  un- 
der lustrous  green  hills,  for  the  reward  of 
cherished  and  unworldly  dreams.  It  was  the 
etherealized  spectacle  of  the  sanguine  hopes  of 
all  the  conquistadores  who  had  set  sail  for  the 
Rubies  of  Cipango;  they 'had  had  great  desires 
of  white  marble  cities  in  which  the  women 
were  lovely  and  dark,  and  gold  was  worked 
into  the  forms  of  every  day. 

They,  different  from  the  frugal  Dutch, 
making,  with  no  less  daring,  the  Eastern  Pas- 
sage in  the  interest  of  associated  merchants 
and  of  commonwealths,  sailed,  in  a  more  pic- 
turesque phrase,  for  their  Catholic  Majesties 
and  for  Spain.  The  Dutch  names,  Bonteke 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
and  Sehouten  and  Roggeveen,  had  a  solid  bar- 
tering sound  compared  with  Francesco  de 
Cordoba  and  Miruelo  and  Angel  de  Villa- 
fane.  Holland  had  its  deathless  tradition  of 
the  sea,  sufficiently  colored  with  extravagant 
adventure ;  but  its  spirit  was  sober,  the  visions 
of  its  navigators  would  never  have  lingered  in 
a  marble  city. 

Havana  was,  perhaps,  a  Saragossa  of  souls, 
with  the  acts  and  thoughts  of  its  early  vivid 
years,  of  Carenas,  forever  held  in  the  atmos- 
phere, audible  in  the  restless  volume  of  sound 
that  was  never  still.  Its  history  had  flashed 
through  my  mind  with  the  turn  of  a  wheel,  its 
duration  seeming  no  more  than  the  opening 
and  shutting  of  a  hand;  but  now  I  had  an  im- 
pression not  of  the  transient,  not  of  walls  and 
names  and  voices,  but  of  qualities  impersonal 
and  permanent,  of  something  which,  while  in- 
dividual men  died,  resisted  death.  It  had  ex- 
istence, that  was,  as  long  as  humanity  drew 
a  continuous  thread  of  memory  through  time. 
Havana  had,  outwardly,  changed  from  its  first 
huddle  of  bohios  and  fortified  tower;  but  the 
[249] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
form  it  had  taken,  so  different  from  the  dis- 
covered reality,  had  beyond  any  question  that 
odd  similitude  to  Marco  Polo's  reports  of 
the  Grand  Khanate.  Its  final  architecture, 
pseudo-classic,  was  more  abstract  than  any 
other  imaginable  order:  all  the  dress  that  had 
ever  paraded  through  the  successive  stages  of 
the  city — the  Cacquies,  girdled  in  feathers,  the 
brocades  of  Maria  de  Toledo  and  her  lady-in- 
waiting,  Captain  Godoy  in  steel  and  lace,  the 
floating  crinoline  of  the  Prince  of  Anglona's 
year,  painted  black  nanigos — was  equally  pos- 
sible against  a  background  at  once  fantastic 
and  restrained. 

There  was  never  a  more  complex  spirit  than 
Havana's,  no  stranger  mingling  of  chance  and 
climate  and  race  had  ever  occurred;  but,  re- 
markably, a  unity  of  effect  had  been  the  result, 
such  a  singleness  as  that  possessed  by  an  opera, 
in  which,  above  the  orchestra  and  the  settings 
and  the  voices,  there  was  perceptible  a  tran- 
scending emotion  created  from  an  artificial 
and  illogical  means.  For  while  Havana  had 
a  record  dignified  in  its  sweep,  it  could  never 
[250] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
be  long  dominant  either  as  a  city  or  in  its  men ; 
it  had  ruled  an  island  but  not  the  world,  it 
had  never  been — in  that  latitude — a  Captain- 
general  of  a  hemisphere.  No,  it  wasn't  sym- 
phonic, but  the  lesser,  more  pictorial,  per- 
formance; it  had,  I  thought,  very  much  the 
appearance  of  a  stage. 

This,  however  was  not  a  denial  of  the  re- 
ality of  the  blood  it  shed,  nor  of  the  sharpness 
and  danger  of  its  emotions;  it  had  been  a  pro- 
fusely bloody  city  with  tropical  passions  often 
reaching  ideals  of  sacrifice.  It  had,  too,  suf- 
fered the  iron  of  oppression,  spoken  its  word 
for  liberty,  the  state  which,  never  to  be  real- 
ized, by  its  bare  conception  elevated  life. 
Now,  in  addition,  it  was  a  great  port  .  .  . 
and  yet,  though  it  might  have  been  the  fault  of 
my  limitations,  I  continued  to  see  Havana  as 
more  dramatic  than  essential;  I  heard  persist- 
ently the  overture  with  the  themes  of  Seville, 
the  crying  native  airs,  the  drums  of  Guinea 
played  with  the  fingers.  The  shining  crooked 
bay  was  filled  by  the  plate  ships  of  Mexico 
and  Peru,  with  their  high-decked  sterns  and 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
yellow  cannon.     The  curtain  fell  to  rise  again 
on  Don  Miguel  Tacon! 

It  was  impossible  to  determine  what  I  had 
seen  of  Havana  and  what  was  merely  my  re- 
flected self;  even  hard  to  decide  if  I  had  seen 
Havana  objectively  at  all,  since  my  attitude 
toward  it  had  been  so  purely  personal.  My 
memory  was  composed  of  what  I'd  experi- 
enced and  the  reflections,  the  thoughts,  that 
had  given  birth  to;  and,  of  them,  the  latter 
were  the  more  real,  solider  than  the  Prado, 
more  tangible  than  the  dining-room  of  the 
Inglaterra.  Without  them  Havana  would 
have  been  meaningless,  sterile,  simply  a  mu- 
seum about  which  nothing  could  be  written 
but  a  catalogue.  It  was  its  special  charm  to 
be  charged  with  sensations  rather  than  facts; 
a  place  where  facts — not,  of  a  kind,  absent — 
could  be  safely  ignored.  Further  than  that, 
ignoring  them  was,  for  any  measure  of  plea- 
sure, absolutely  needful:  the  pedantic  spirit  in 
Havana  was  fatal. 

What,  almost  entirely,  I  had  been  told  to 
view,  expected  to  enjoy,  I  had  avoided ;  yet  not 
[252] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
that,  for  it  implied  a  deliberate  will,  and  such  a 
planning  or  triumph  of  character  had  been  as 
far  as  possible  from  my  drifting:  I  had  seen 
what  I  preferred  and  done  what  I  was;  any- 
one, following  me  in  Havana,  could  have 
judged  me  with  exactitude.  I  had  spent  money 
lavishly — as  though  I  were  rich  instead  of  ex- 
travagant— for  visible  returns  that  would  have 
only  provoked  the  other  passengers  on  the  City 
of  Miami.  They,  where  they  were  not  driven 
to  staterooms  by  the  dipping  of  the  steamer, 
were  vociferous  with  knowledge  about  Cuba, 
their  bags  were  heavy  with  souvenirs — the 
Coty  perfumes  from  France  and  the  table- 
linen  of  the  Canary  Islands.  The  pervasive 
salesmen,  flushed  with  success  and  Scotch 
whisky,  smoking  the  cigars  long  familiar  to 
them  in  northern  hotels,  hinted  together  of  the 
Parisian  girls  and  criollos,  to  whom  they  re- 
ferred as  Creoles  in  the  meaning  and  vocabu- 
lary of  American  burlesque.  Some  officials 
of  transportation  and  sugar  manipulators  sat 
aside,  with  double  Coronas,  exchanging  in 
short  sentences  their  hardness  of  knowledge, 
[253] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
speaking  of  Cuba  as  an  estancia  of  which  they 
were  absentee  owners.  A  flight  of  winged  fish 
skittered  over  the  sea,  and  the  clouds  following 
the  Gulf  Stream  turned  rose  with  the  drop- 
ping of  the  sun;  the  horizon  bore  a  suggestion 
of  Florida.  Once  Cuba,  regarded  as  the  shore 
of  India,  had  been  the  center  of  the  West,  and 
Florida  no  more  than  a  chimera:  how  ironic 
such  errors  and  reversals  were!  Now  it  was 
Juana  that  was  legendary,  and  Florida  re- 
sembled the  significant  hooked  finger  of  an 
imponderable  power.  The  day  slid  rapidly 
into  water  that  had  lost  its  blueness  for  ex- 
panses of  chalky  shallow  green,  and  the  flat 
roofs  of  Key  West  and  masoned  arches  became 
slowly  visible  across  the  sea,  and  a  stir  of  de- 
parture filled  the  decks. 

I  was,  for  a  moment,  depressed  at  the  defi- 
nite leaving  behind  of  Havana — for  the  tran- 
quil passage  had  seemed  only  an  extension  of 
its  spirit — and  by  the  imminent  reshouldering 
of  my  burden  of  responsibility.  I  had  never 
wanted  that,  but,  without  choice,  it  had  been 
abruptly  thrust  on  me — a  responsibility,  im- 

[254] 


San  Cristobal  de  la  Habana 
possible  of  fulfilment,  which  I  couldn't  put 
down.  When  I  was  young  I  had  looked  in 
vain  for  a  perpetual  Havana,  hoping  for  noth- 
ing more;  and  now,  when  my  youth  was  dead, 
I  had  found  the  perfection  of  my  desire.  But, 
as  always,  the  discovery  was  too  late;  I 
couldn't  stay  in  the  covered  paseos,  the  plazas 
with  flambeau  trees  and  royal  palms  or  idle 
in  a  room  of  Moorish  tiles  with  a  dripping 
fountain,  over  a  magic  drink;  my  time  for  the 
actualities  of  charming  liberty,  the  possession 
of  uncounted  days,  was  gone.  But  this  mood 
was  nothing  more  than  a  gesture,  a  sentiment, 
thrown  back  to  romance. 


[255] 


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